Blondes
by Alphabet Pie
Summary: Larxene and Naminé are stuck for cash in a crumbling house with a tenant who's even more broke than they are. The quickest fix? Marluxia, an enigmatic man with more money than he knows what to do with and gorgeous, bottomless eyes. All pairings.
1. 0 Prologue

The summer had been crazy hot, work bad and tensions were running high when the new tenant moved into the spare room at the back of the house.  
He was an old friend of Larxene's, she had said, harmless if a little eccentric, brunette (the first tenant not to be blonde), perfectionist, and rich to boot. A perfect addition to the crumbling household.  
Needless to say, they were all looking forward to (well, most of them; Vexen never looked forward to anything, even Christmas) the arrival of this strange Marluxia fellow.

None of them - not even Larxene - expected pink hair and black leather.  
"You've changed," She commented lightly as he stepped into the house, giving it a critical once-over.  
He smiled a little, deep blue eyes that were hypnotising and bottomless and drew you in until you completely forgot that it was rude to stare and it was quite possibly a good thing that his dusty pink fringe hung slightly too low on his forehead, for otherwise you may very well have simply fallen into the pools of iridescent sapphire, never to see the light of day again.  
It made you wonder how many people he had drowned with those eyes.  
"So have you. You must introduce me,"  
His voice was the same, deep yet somehow soft and song like, and you melted into the gentle, lilting sound of his speech until there were dreams of meadows and cloudless skylines and wheeling, singing birds calling beautiful melodies to commemorate the beauty of the world...  
He walked down the hallway as though the place was already his own, proud and strong. He had an air about him, of nobility and regality that heralded to a time gone by.  
"Yeah, sure. This is Naminé, she's an artist, and Vexen, a scientist - I'd stay away from him if I were you. He's kinda... antisocial,"  
Vexen made no move to disagree with the statement. In his opinion, the less he saw of other people, the better. Most people agreed.  
Marluxia's gaze flitted over Naminé for a moment, but apparently considered her fairly uninteresting. Vexen... He took his time to inspect the bony man lingering at the bottom of the staircase, as though memorising every meticulous detail of his body. It obviously made Vexen uncomfortable, all but squirming under that steady look.  
A silent conversation was held between blue eyes, and green. Vexen was the first to glance away.  
"Hmph."  
He made his way up the stairs, and was gone.  
Marluxia smiled again, almost condescendingly if you looked deep enough.  
"What a curious man,"  
Larxene chuckled.  
"Downright barmy, if you ask me,"  
He turned again to Naminé.  
"A quiet one, aren't you?"  
Naminé almost melted under that radiating gaze. There was no denying that this man was _gorgeous_, and Naminé was the kind of person who was noticeable only for the fact that she was so _unnoticeable_, remarkable only in her unremarkability. People weren't interested in her. So when Marluxia suddenly turned his undivided attention to her, she crumpled beneath the captivating charisma that held everybody's eyes on his.  
Or perhaps she was just being too poetic about the whole thing.  
"Y-yeah," She stuttered, with a little shrug.  
Marluxia nodded, satisfied by her answer, and walked through into the kitchen to inspect his new territory.  
Naminé glanced at Larxene, who grinned.  
"He'll fit in just fine," The taller blonde assured the smaller one as Marluxia checked the cupboards, dismissing most of them as useless. "Well, except with Vexen but he's a jigsaw puzzle all by himself,"


	2. 1 This Thing Called Sexual Harassment

"So," Larxene said.  
Marluxia, sitting tall and straight with his legs crossed and his fingers steepled on the table, smiled.  
"Indeed."  
"I hadn't expected you to come back from America. I thought you liked it there,"  
Marluxia glanced around the room with calculating eyes, perfectly poised. It made you wonder, how much of his personality was _him_, and how much was simply an act.  
"I felt as though I needed the change. Interesting housemates you have."  
"Vexen and Naminé? Yeah. They're a little crazy, but aren't we all?"  
"Vexen..." Marluxia repeated thoughtfully, as though tasting the man's name on his lips. "Yes. Very interesting indeed."  
Larxene quickly caught drift of Marluxia's thought track.  
"No," She said. "Vexen's not available, Mar. Nuh-uh. Not even gay."  
He simply smiled distantly.  
"We'll see."  
There was silence again, for a little while. They eyed each other up. Well. Marluxia eyed Larxene down. He did that to everybody.  
"You shouldn't bother," She finally said. "Really. You can't convince Vexen to doubt his sexuality, and even if you _could_, he's not worth the effort. I slept with him once and he's really not that good,"  
Marluxia grinned, revealing perfect white teeth.  
"It will be different," He said, voice dropping a few decibels as though what he was saying were some conspiratorial secret, "When he takes it." He glanced at the doorway, then returned to pierce her with his gaze. "Vexen's the kind of person who'll squirm and gasp in bed like a vestal maiden. I can tell."  
"Ew," Larxene said. "That's disgusting. Keep me out of your kinky sex games with Vexen,"  
Marluxia laughed.  
"I haven't even started on the kinky sex games yet. Although, it does bring back memories, doesn't it? We should try it again some time."  
"I thought you wanted to win over Vexen's icy heart," She muttered, almost beginning to regret inviting Marluxia to live with then. He was a sweetheart, really, but _damn_, he was full of himself. And would consequently screw pretty much anything with blonde hair and two legs. Larxene should have remembered that he had a crazy blonde-fetish.  
Too late now.  
"Oh, I don't want to win over his heart," Marluxia replied flippantly. "What would I want his heart for? I just want to get my hands on that tight ass of his,"  
"Good luck with that," Larxene said bluntly. "You won't be able to get in bed with Vexen unless you actually tie him down or something,"  
"That can be arranged," Marluxia replied with a winning smile.  
"You attempt rape and he actually will call the police," She reminded him.  
"Now _that_ would be amusing," Marluxia mused, still watching her through his thick, black eyelashes. She sighed.  
"No. It wouldn't. Seriously. If you are going to attempt moving in on Vexen, you have to at least do it fair and square,"  
"You say that like I'd actually _need_ to resort to dirty, underhanded tactics,"  
"Since when do you _not_?" Larxene teased.  
Marluxia chuckled again, but suddenly the amusement was gone from his voice, his eyes switched from warm - if condescending - to cold and dark in an instant.  
"When indeed," He murmured, and stood to his full, imposing height - he was tall, perhaps only a few inches shorter than Vexen who was considered by Naminé and Larxene - both petite - as nothing less than a giant - and walked out.

---

For several minutes after Marluxia had left the next morning, Naminé and Larxene simply stared at the door. Finally it was the taller of the two who spoke first.  
"Fuuuuck."  
Naminé simply nodded a little, blushing. Her hand was raised thoughtfully to her mouth, fingertips lightly brushing her lips. Lips that had, not five minutes ago, been enthusiastically claimed by a certain pink haired sex god.  
"And here I thought that he wanted to get his hands on Vexen," Larxene muttered, shaking her head and walking back down the narrow corridor into the kitchen. Naminé, expression somewhat dazed, followed her.  
"Why did he do that?" She finally asked in a small, somewhat hopeful voice.  
"He does that to all kinds of people, I'm sure," Larxene said. Of course she'd known that Marluxia was a slut - he was pretty much the first guy in their year to put out, to anybody he thought pretty or blonde enough to meet his standards - but he usually did nothing more than actually sleeping with people. And certainly not kissing college girls before leaving for the day. "Although, if he likes you, I think you'd better lock your door tonight."  
Naminé paled.  
"I what?"  
"I second that," Came a wry voice from the doorway, and Vexen slipped in with an empty coffee mug. He was frowning deeply, and looked uncharacteristically ruffled. "I happened to overhear a rather disturbing conversation between you and Marluxia last night and I demand to know what exactly you're not telling us about him."  
Larxene scowled.  
"Okay, so he's a pervert. Who couldn't have guessed?"  
"I thought he looked quite noble..." Naminé confessed quietly, flopping into one of the stools by the counter and resting her chin on the smooth marble surface. Larxene scoffed.  
"Noble my ass. Come on, you can't be mad at me for Marluxia's little eccentricities."  
"No, but I can be mad at you for letting an utter madman into this house."  
Larxene rolled her eyes, sighing as she leaned against the wall.  
"Look, Vexen, don't you dare go off on me. What we need is money and Marluxia has plenty of it. You hate him? Big deal. You hate everybody."  
"That's not true and you know it!" Vexen snapped back, grabbing his refilled mug and preparing to storm out.  
"Oh yeah? Name an example." Larxene challenged, disinterestedly examining her nails. Vexen losing his temper was more than a daily occurrence and it had more or less lost its effect on his housemates. There was a small, awkward silence until Vexen finally muttered -  
"It's none of your business who I do and do not like,"  
- and stomped away.  
As soon as he was gone, Larxene made eye contact with Naminé and cracked up laughing.

---

"Hello."  
"Do you mind?!"  
"Not at all. Please, do keep removing your trousers."  
Vexen growled a little and pulled his jeans back up, zipping up the fly and rebuckling his belt before turning to the intruder.  
"What do you want?" He hissed, stalking over to his computer as though he'd always been sitting there typing, and not undressing in the middle of the room.  
"I was under the impression that you knew."  
"_I_ was under the impression that you kissed Naminé." Vexen retorted.  
Marluxia laughed, cruelly, as he swept over to rest his fingertips on Vexen's wide shoulders, subtly exploring his neck with sharp, well manicured nails.  
"I was simply toying with her. There's no law against that."  
"Yes there is. It's called sexual harassment."  
Marluxia didn't even skip a beat.  
"It isn't harassment if you enjoy it, now is it?"  
Vexen didn't like the way Marluxia said "_you_". He carefully prised the other man's hands away from his neck.  
"Unfortunately for you, I am not a simpering young girl won over by the looks and charm of a man."  
Unperturbed, Marluxia simply slid his hands down Vexen's chest until his mouth was right next to Vexen's ear.  
"Oh, but you will be, soon enough," He murmured.  
"Dream on," Vexen spat, pushing Marluxia away.  
"Why dream when my fantasies are right in front of me...?" Marluxia simply purred, spinning Vexen around on his chair and straddling him, hands gripping the other man's wrists in an iron hold.  
"Just because you want to assert your oh so precious masculinity on the nearest available blonde doesn't mean they have to like it. Get off me!" Vexen hissed as he struggled against Marluxia's grasp. "Don't make me scream for help, because I will,"  
"Will you indeed?"  
And Marluxia closed in; the very same lips that had captivated Naminé that morning pressing against Vexen's, effectively gagging him and stoppering any furious or desperate screams into nothing more than indignant, helpless splutters.  
He felt a flash of tongue against his, and bit down, hard. Marluxia quickly pulled away for a moment, laughing and apparently unharmed.  
"Nice try,"  
And he grabbed Vexen's cheek with one hand, fingers digging into the taut flesh beneath his high cheekbones and forcing his mouth open again. Marluxia was _strong_, and despite Vexen's best efforts he was unable to dislodge the other man from his lap with only one hand.  
It seemed like the kiss went on for eternity, but eventually Marluxia pulled away, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and leaving a shocked and ruffled Vexen in his wake.  
"Hm. Not bad."  
"Is that it?" Vexen demanded, glaring as Marluxia returned to the doorway. "You're just going to snog me and leave like nothing happened?"  
Marluxia spun neatly on his heel.  
"Why," He asked cockily, "Do you _want_ me to do more?"  
"Of course not!" Vexen snapped back. "Just... _leave_."  
"Oh, no," Marluxia simply murmured, the purr slipping back into his husky voice as, click click click, he returned to Vexen's side, leaning down until his fringe hung in both their eyes. "You want _more_. Don't deny it, Vexen,"  
"Don't make me laugh," Vexen retorted, turning away. Marluxia simply spun him back.  
"Larxene tells me that you're lousy in bed."  
"What does that have to do with anything?"  
"I just thought you might like the chance to prove her wrong."  
"What, with _you_?!"  
"No, with Naminé," Marluxia replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. The smirk never left his face. "Of course with _me_, Vexen. Although if you're really so adamant, I'm sure we could involve Larxene too,"  
"You're sick," Vexen said, standing forcibly enough to push Marluxia back a step. "You think that I would sleep with you just to prove my masculinity? That I'd offer my body up to you just because you're _asking_?"  
"I'm not asking," Marluxia said, not sounding put out at all by Vexen's blunt rejection. "I'm _offering_. Nobody else seems to be."  
That appeared to be a low blow; Vexen's eyes grew wide before narrowing dangerously, and he stuttered, unable to conjure a reply.  
"Oh?" Marluxia said, seeing his reaction and letting his smile widen. "Oh, so you _do_ care. Who'd have thought, poor little Vexen's frustrated because he's not getting any?"  
"Sh-shut up!"  
Marluxia laughed openly.  
"Oh, you are cute, Vexen. Come here. I won't deprive you any longer."  
And he simply fell into the taller blonde, kisses deep but also soft, hands tangling in Vexen's hair as he toppled them both onto the bed.  
"I'll be gentle," He promised as he chewed on a delicious ear, tone victorious.  
"What makes you think you'll have a chance to do anything?" Vexen hissed, attempting - and failing - to push Marluxia away.  
"Oh, just the fact that I'm sitting on top of you in your _bed_," Marluxia replied triumphantly.  
"I never said you could be here!" Vexen growled. "Just go away, and let me sleep!"  
"What, and have you pass up on the best sex of your life?"  
"I don't _want_ sex," Vexen insisted, and then, since this probably wouldn't make sense to a man like Marluxia added, "I have work tomorrow,"  
This seemed to be the wrong response, and Marluxia laughed again.  
"You're making excuses now, Vexen. Trying to cover up the fact that you really do want me?"  
And he leaned down and pressed his mouth to Vexen's once again, hand tugging just a little too hard in his hair, body pressing a little too close, fingers gripping Vexen's wrist in a simple gesture of _resistance is useless_.  
Vexen wasn't one for simply giving in, but Marluxia's tongue roaming his mouth wasn't really all that displeasurable, and somehow he realised that even if he tore the other man away now, he'd be back for more. And hopefully if he just lay there, Marluxia would get bored and go away.  
He had no such luck.  
"You know, if you just lay still when you had Larxene, no wonder she didn't enjoy it. You do have to move, you know."  
Vexen fired off a glare in the half darkness as he caught his breath.  
"If you were expecting me to actually join in, then you're wrong,"  
"It doesn't make any difference to _me_," Marluxia replied, apparently not concerned in the slightest. "I can take you whether you writhe and moan in the bedsheets, or act the inanimate sex toy."  
Horror filled Vexen's features, readable as a book even in the gloom.  
"What."  
"Vexen, when two men have sex _one_ of them has to be fucking the other, and it's hardly going to be you, is it?"  
"You try going anywhere near my arse and I will have you arrested."  
Vexen's threat was met with two hands lovingly curling around each cheek of the aforementioned body part. He opened his mouth to scream, and was stoppered once again with a kiss.  
"I'll be gentle," Marluxia promised again once they broke apart.  
"Just go away."  
"I don't see you trying very hard to force me off." Marluxia murmured, licking the other man's cheek. "Look, Vexen, I'm going to get into your pants either way. You can either let me have my way tonight, or let me have my way some other time. I'm not fussed."  
"Can't you just leave me alone?"  
Marluxia smirked, leaning down against Vexen's chest and rolling them both over so he was underneath.  
"Let's make a deal, Vexen." He said. "If you let me have you when I like and I won't breathe a word of our affair to anybody else. Refuse me, and let's just say... you could find yourself in a _very_ compromising situation..."  
"Is that a threat?" Vexen asked contemptuously as he attempted to prise himself from Marluxia's hold.  
Marluxia smiled with one last, lingering kiss as he left Vexen to the bed.  
"I suppose you could say that it was."  
Click, click, click.  
He was gone.


	3. 2 When is Blonde Enough of a Reason

Surprisingly, for all his threats of imminent sexual harassment, Marluxia more or less ignored Vexen for the remainder of the week, preferring instead to lead Naminé on all kinds of wild goose chases with kisses, flattery and promises that would make _Larxene_ blush. Vexen was happy enough with this arrangement. He could _still_ taste that slightly odd flavour of Marluxia's tongue in his mouth. It took him a lot of thought to describe that heavy, musky and yet fresh cut-grass taste... not that he thought about it much, of course. Because he was trying to forget the entire ordeal. Obviously.  
Yeah.  
Unfortunately, it was difficult to forget that experience, particularly for Vexen. He'd never actually been tongued before (Larxene, which was ages ago, had been so drunk that she kept missing), much less groped, and by a _man_ of all people. Even on Friday as he drove to work, he caught himself running his tongue over his teeth and blushing at the memory.  
But Marluxia did seem to have been joking, at the very least, so things were gradually settling into their old routine. And Vexen was pretty certain that he'd had sex with Larxene already, and not only on one occasion, and if he had her to amuse himself there was no way that he'd bother with a prude like Vexen.  
Right?

_Wrong_.

---

"_Vexen_."  
Friday evening, and finally Vexen was settling down without the need to get up any time soon, getting comfortable under the thick, heavy duvet (Vexen got cold easily), and _there he was_.  
In _extremely tight leather_.  
With _handcuffs._  
Marluxia seemed to take the fact that Vexen was staring as an invitation to walk over from the doorway, his hips swinging.  
"Like what you see?"  
Vexen managed to snap himself out of staring enough to violently shake his head.  
"G-get away from me."  
Marluxia chuckled, bending over at the waist to cup Vexen's chin between his forefinger and thumb.  
"Have you already forgotten our deal?"  
"I'm not going to let you control me," Vexen said lowly, hoping to sound threatening... but he guessed that he probably sounded more pathetic. Predictably enough, Marluxia just laughed.  
"You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart."  
Vexen, who had never been called sweetheart before, felt a blush rising to his cheeks - and Marluxia noticed.  
"What's this?" he said quietly, rubbing his thumb across Vexen's cheek. "Somebody's getting flustered already?"  
Vexen hissed, pushing away.  
"Just leave me-"  
He was interrupted by a kiss as Marluxia invaded his mouth, climbing onto the bed and pushing the duvet away until it toppled gracelessly to the floor. Vexen stared at the double-image of Marluxia, _too close_, eyes closed in some ironic gesture of sincerity. It was too terrifying.  
Considering Vexen suitably kissed into submission, Marluxia eventually leant back, a crooked smile curving his full, pink lips.  
"You can enjoy this, you know," he murmured huskily as his fingertips fell to Vexen's hips. Vexen squeaked with indignation, and tried to make a grab for Marluxia, push him away or off or _something_, but he found that he couldn't move his arms. Somewhere along the line, he'd been handcuffed to the bed.  
"Just relax," Marluxia whispered playfully, kneading Vexen's taut skin with the palms of his hands. "If you stop looking so horrified and tell me how you want this, I assure you that it will be a lot easier for both of us. Mostly you."  
"Firstly," Vexen said venomously, "I don't want to be tied up like some kind of toy. Secondly, I want you to get off me. And thirdly, I want you to walk over to the other side of the room and out of the door and never harass me again."  
Marluxia laughed again.  
"I already told you that wasn't an option."  
"Why do you want me so much anyway?" Vexen, who'd never been in a relationship and much less a sexual one, demanded. Marluxia's eyes became almost sad, as though it seemed a pity that Vexen would ever have to ask such a question, and he leaned down to gently brush his fingers across Vexen's cheek.  
"Why _wouldn't_ I want you?"  
Vexen rallied off a well-rehearsed list of reasons.  
"I'm old," He said, "I'm old and I'm ugly and bony and cranky, I'm a _man_, I hate sex, I'm terrible in bed, all I care about is science, my voice is extraordinarily irritating, I must be incredibly uncomfortable to sit on, I smell odd, I'm pernickety about everything, my breath reeks of coffee and I hate you."  
He was replied to with a chuckle as Marluxia's hands began to roam once again.  
"Besides that."  
"Isn't that a good enough reason for you?!"  
Marluxia shrugged, reaching up to thread a lock of Vexen's long hair through his hands.  
"You're _blonde_."  
"So what?"  
Marluxia smiled a little, too unpredictably softly kissing Vexen's nose.  
"That's enough of a reason for me."  
"You're sick," Vexen spat, gasping and buckling into the mattress as Marluxia's fingertips encountered the waistband of his flannel pyjama trousers and without a second's hesitation, pushed their way inside. He tried to kick his legs but Marluxia had them firmly pinned down with his own, strength too great for Vexen to overpower him.  
"I shan't penetrate you tonight if you don't want it," Marluxia said offhandedly, as though he weren't expertly stroking an _extremely_ private area of a less than consenting partner.  
"Do I look like I'd _ever_ want it?" Vexen snapped right back, but his voice had risen to something just short of a squeak as he desperately tried to stay in control, willing his body to be uncooperative to Marluxia's twisted ends. It didn't seem too inclined to listen to him.  
"Oh, you'll want it once you feel the things I can do with your body," Marluxia promised huskily, twitching his fingers _just so_ and Vexen groaned, eyelids fluttering.  
"St-stop that!"  
"Just relax," Marluxia murmured, leaning forwards to lick Vexen's ear. "Just relax, it'll make things a whole lot better. You'll enjoy yourself. I can give you the night of your life."  
Vexen tried to scoff, but the control he was desperately clinging to was all too quickly slipping past him, and when Marluxia started using his _mouth_ he tried to tell the other man to get off and go away and he suddenly found that he _couldn't_, because he'd never felt anything like a hot, wet, experienced tongue and it was just too much, too much, and he bucked and squirmed helplessly in the way that he just knew Marluxia would gain sick, perverted pleasure from.  
He still stubbornly held back any moans that threatened to slip past his lips, determined to hate what Marluxia was doing, because if there was one thing he wasn't going to do it was just give in and let Marluxia think that he could do whatever he wanted to with his body. Just because he couldn't stop Marluxia didn't mean that he had to _like_ it. Even if every nerve ending on his skin tingled where the pink haired man's fingers roamed, even when he saw stars as Marluxia licked and breathed and performed elaborate movements with his tongue that Vexen didn't even know were physically _possible_.  
It was all over quickly, but not quickly enough as Marluxia saw fit to cover Vexen's entire torso with saliva as though he wasn't already soaked in sweat and messy enough with other bodily fluids.  
"See? That wasn't so bad, was it?"  
"I hate you."  
As soon as Marluxia had undone the handcuffs, Vexen managed to get his numb arm working enough to resolutely slap him with all his might, sending pink hair flying and leaving a rather satisfying red mark beginning to form on Marluxia's cheek.  
Marluxia, the bastard, just laughed.  
"I suppose I deserved that."  
He left Vexen with one last, lingering kiss and was gone.

-

It took half an hour or so before Vexen managed to stumble to the bathroom, a hastily grabbed towel around his waist, to have a shower or better still, a bath to clean himself off and wash away as many traces of Marluxia as humanly possible without actually removing any of his skin, too. The night's events were just beginning to sink into his tired, confused mind, and it wasn't long before sheer horror had set in. He'd just been... by a _man_. Without his consent. Was that rape? Could he call the police?  
Oh God, he couldn't. He'd never live down the shame. Loathe as he was to admit it, Marluxia had won this time.  
Somebody was in the bathroom - it was nearly one o'clock in the morning, why the hell was _anybody_ still awake? - and Vexen, wondering just how awful he looked, with messy hair and a shell shocked expression not to mention covered in lick, waited in the shadows for whoever it was to come out.  
It was Naminé. She noticed Vexen, frowning a little worriedly.  
"What happened to you?"  
"Nothing," Vexen quickly replied, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door before its light could reveal too much of his dishevelled appearance. Once inside, he shoved the plug into the drain of the bath and began to fill it up, shuddering again and again as his mind kept wandering back to earlier that night. It took him several minutes to realise that he'd forgotten to lock the door and Naminé was watching him from the dark corridor.  
"You look awful."  
Vexen panicked. _She knew!_ She knew, she must have realised, and it was horrible and Vexen wanted to disappear and she was going to tell Larxene and Larxene was going to laugh and _everybody_ would know and they would all laugh...  
"I... I had a nightmare." He managed to say in place of a proper alibi, some sort of lame excuse that would do nothing to explain his state of messy undress and disrupted thought track.  
"You okay?"  
Nobody really ever asked Vexen if he was okay except out of formality or, in Naminé's case, innate kindness. He was well aware of that fact and he'd never paid much attention to the apathy of others towards him. Besides, if anybody was to ask, all he ever did was lie.  
"I'm fine."  
"Okay. Try to get some sleep, won't you?"  
Vexen nodded, trying and failing to judge Naminé's thoughts from her expression. It annoyed him that he couldn't know what she thought had happened to him, but then she was gone without another word. He turned, brushing her from his mind, and turned off the taps, slipping a little clumsily into the bath. He must have spent a good half an hour scrubbing, but it was no use; he could still _feel_ Marluxia's touches on his skin like burns, and eventually he was forced to simply sink into the water up to his nose so that his knees had to stick well out into the steamy air and brood until the water turned tepid. Once in the darkest of moments he fancied he might just dip his head a few more inches into the water and hold his breath until his heart gave out, just to show Marluxia... but he knew he could never do that. So his airways stayed safely above the water until he stood unsteadily, climbed out and found a clean towel to dry himself off, then staggered back to his bed.  
His bed.  
It was a mess. He'd have to change it. He couldn't sleep on a bed covered in things he didn't want to think about and reeking of Marluxia. So he reluctantly flicked on the light and stripped down his mattress, replacing the sheet and duvet cover. The clean, starched sheets offered him a little comfort as he tried to settle down in a position that didn't constantly remind him of lying helplessly trapped between Marluxia and the bed. He slept badly.

-

"Where's Vexen?"  
"Who cares. Quick, hide the coffee before he comes just to annoy him."  
"Oh, Larxene, don't. You're so heartless."  
For once, all of the house's inhabitants bar Vexen were collected in the kitchen; Marluxia appeared to just be randomly posing in one of the chairs by the table, looking like a king asserting his authority over his dominion, Larxene had just got up and was making something which she might have called breakfast but nobody else would, and Naminé was drawing them both for her art project.  
"I mean, he's always up really early in the morning," Naminé continued, glancing at her two elders for help. "Maybe he's having a lie in... he had a pretty rough night last night."  
Marluxia arched a neat, tapered eyebrow at her. Habitually observant, Naminé noticed that Marluxia's fluffy hair was covering one of his cheeks more than usual today. She briefly wondered why.  
"Rough?"  
"Yeah, I met him at about one in the morning and he looked terrible."  
"He _always_ looks terrible," Larxene giggled.  
"Hey, that's not nice!" Naminé exclaimed. She was the kind of person who always stuck up for everybody unconditionally whether she liked them or not, and Vexen was no exception to this rule.  
"What? I'm just stating the facts. He's not exactly what you'd call attractive."  
Naminé frowned a little, knowing that Larxene was right but not wanting to admit it for politeness' sake. Marluxia, however, decided to take matters into his own hands.  
"Says the one woman who, I distinctly recall, admitted to having had sex with Vexen?"  
Larxene coloured immediately and Naminé found herself pretty impressed at Marluxia. Not just anybody could make Larxene blush.  
"Oh, come off it. I was drunk. I didn't even realise that it was Vexen until it was too late."  
"Poor thing," Marluxia laughed, although whether he was referring to Larxene or Vexen, Naminé wasn't quite sure. She felt a little bit bad for Vexen, though; Naminé herself was as plain as could be and yet even she'd managed to have a couple of romances in her short life. But Vexen was a good decade older, and with the exception of Larxene... nothing. Naminé wasn't really even sure if he had any friends.  
She suddenly felt the need to go cheer Vexen up, so she excused herself and slipped through the door into the hallway. What she didn't expect was to see Vexen there, hand halfway up to the doorknob and frozen.  
"Oh, hey there."  
Vexen shook his head a little, snapping out of his reverie with a frown.  
"What do you want?"  
"I was just wondering if you were up yet," Naminé said, dancing around the much taller man. Inside, in the little part of her mind that she always tried to ignore, she thought that it was probably only reasonable that Vexen wasn't anybody popular. He was just antisocial by nature, always scowling and snappish, and physically quite intimidating too since he was so tall.  
"Of course I am," Vexen replied flatly, momentarily pinching the bridge of his nose.  
"You wanted the kitchen?"  
Vexen quickly - just a little too quickly - shook his head.  
"No. No, I was just thinking."  
"Okay. Are you feeling better?"  
"I'm fine."  
It was that same flat monotone, the automatic textbook answer that Vexen always supplied when such questions were asked. He was fine. Never good, never bad, just... fine.  
"So what are you doing today?"  
Vexen shrugged and swept off upstairs, so Naminé returned listlessly to the kitchen, feeling as though nothing at all had been achieved. If she'd stayed in the corridor she might have heard the sounds of retching coming from the bathroom. But she didn't. Nobody did.

-

After a pathetic half hour attempt at getting up, Vexen violently threw up into the kitchen sink and went back to bed.  
Ever since last night he'd been feeling worse and worse, the truth of what Marluxia had done slowly but surely seeping into his body and mind more and more as time progressed. Marluxia had sexually harassed him. More than that, he'd actually... Vexen couldn't even bring himself to think of the words. He'd been _licked_, his mouth invaded and his personal space ripped mercilessly apart and that on its own was enough to make Vexen feel sick. But worse than that was the fact that as time progressed, he kept thinking of more and more things that he _could_ have done to keep Marluxia away so that it never would have happened. He hadn't fought hard enough, his words weren't harsh enough, he hadn't tried hard enough to keep Marluxia way and now what would happen if the man were to come back? If people were to start asking questions? If Marluxia told them that he'd just lain there like a more than willing partner, what could he reply with? What if, what if, what if? And if all of that wasn't bad enough, he'd just been about to finally get some breakfast in the morning when he'd happened to overhear Marluxia and Larxene talking.  
"_I didn't even realise that it was Vexen until it was too late._"  
And everything had been too much and Vexen hadn't been able to keep the contents of his stomach safely down, particularly when Naminé kept asking such pointed questions that could only have related to last night. Oh God, what if Marluxia had told them? Larxene knew that he wanted to get in bed with Vexen, and what if, what if, what if?  
And Larxene. Larxene, the only woman he'd ever slept with. In fact, the only woman he'd even come close to. And she didn't realise it was him until it was _too late_. Was there something _wrong_ with him? That the only person who thought him worth screwing over was Marluxia, a sick, twisted bastard who was probably only doing it because it was _funny_.  
Vexen wished for a long time that it could be sometime during the week, because then at least he'd have work to do and not be forced to just lie in bed, mulling things over and over. He couldn't even bring himself to go and watch TV downstairs in the sitting room because there was every chance that one of the others might join him; Larxene with her callous laughter, or Naminé who asked too many questions, or _Marluxia_...  
And the more he mulled, the more dissatisfied he became. He had, as a general rule, simply stumbled through nearly three decades of life without care for anything bar science; if people didn't like him (which was the standard state of affairs), then it was their problem. But... was he really _that_ unattractive? That annoying?  
The thoughts plagued him for a long time.


	4. 3 Who's being noticed now?

Naminé was not used to being noticed by people like Marluxia.  
All through her life she had conformed to the rules that her appearance and her personality had set her - she was plain, so only other plain people who nobody else noticed her and vice versa. Not even Larxene, who'd been her friend ever since school, really ever noticed her. Now they lived together, they just seemed to enjoy a peaceful enough coexistence, and neither of them had any reason to acknowledge the other except every month when they did the accounts and had to beg a little more money off Vexen - as though he could even afford the modest rent they charged him for his room at the back of the house. Every time it was the same - they couldn't keep up with the payments to keep this house standing. They'd have to move somewhere smaller until Naminé finished college and got a job. But all three of them knew and knew it well: the moment they moved out of this shitty little hole it'd be demolished for an up market block of flats that none of them would be able to dream of living in. That was because as awful as this house was, sitting squat and ugly in its disrepair a good distance from the rest of the buildings in the road, was in a beautiful location. It overlooked the river just as it swelled into a gorgeous, picturesque meander, in a place that was just too pretty for anybody to build on. It was the only angle to which this view could be held without it being marred by the main road (hidden by convenient undulations in the land) or the farm (trees stood in its way). It was the perfect place for a development - which was precisely why Larxene and Naminé were clinging to their little property with all of their collective might. So somehow no matter how bad their accounts were, they still managed to scrape together just enough pennies to pay the bills, and even if it meant cuddling under piles and piles of blankets when the heating broke for the twentieth time, it was, in small ways, worth it.  
As far as she knew, Vexen didn't appreciate this - a penniless man found somewhere by Larxene in dire need of a place to live - and since they had a room to spare and a great need of money, they seemed to go hand in hand and Vexen had lived with them ever since. He never really got on with either of them, though; he couldn't stand Larxene's often malicious attitude, nor Naminé's quiet pensiveness. But for whatever reason, he stayed, almost just another part of the furniture, just as decrepit and just as predicable. Larxene called him an old man with routine frequency; Naminé was sure that he couldn't have been older than thirty, maybe thirty five - but in every other aspect he really _was_ an old man: old fashioned sense of dress and rules, always shuffling around with a newspaper, slippers and his peculiar little squint...  
Naminé felt a little sorry for him. He didn't really fit in _anywhere_, not in this broken house with two young women, not at work where he was always being harassed, and he didn't really exist anywhere else. Unlike even Naminé, who was familiar with most of the local shopkeepers and enough neighbours to make friendly conversation to and from college, nobody really knew who Vexen was. But then again, that had never really concerned the man in question very much. He just wasn't a people person. God knew what he did in his room all the time when he wasn't at work (it was full of books, though what purpose they served neither Larxene or Naminé knew), but it certainly wasn't sociable.  
And then there was Marluxia. The polar opposite to Vexen: friendly, outgoing, flirtatious if a little perverted - but that was completely forgiveable because he was so gorgeous, so wonderful in every way. He'd only been here for a few weeks now, but already he'd just clicked with everybody (well, not Vexen but who clicked with him?). Naminé felt a little blush rise to her cheeks, thinking about the last time Marluxia had swept her off her feet and up into his arms, or when he'd kissed her in greeting or departure, or that one time when they were alone and he'd looked into her eyes and murmured, with his deep melody of a voice,  
"You're beautiful."  
Coming from Marluxia, who was gorgeous even for a woman, let alone a man, that was a really, really big compliment. It made Naminé want to giggle with nervous happiness that somebody so amazing - one of the _popular_ people, not just a nobody - had chosen to notice her - _her_. Of course, she thought humbly, she'd never make a good girlfriend for him - she was too young, too stuttery and innocent, not nearly what somebody like Marluxia deserved. But that didn't mean that she couldn't hope, right? Wouldn't it be lovely if Marluxia asked her out, whatever Vexen was raging on about or all the rapist jokes that Larxene made, wouldn't it? Because Naminé really _did_ think that Marluxia was noble. He looked like a prince. He wasn't the kind of person to just take advantage of somebody, Naminé could see that in his eyes, his beautiful bottomless eyes.  
She sighed, and fiddled with her pencil a little more as she wondered if Marluxia would be willing to pose for another still life. He was so enjoyable to draw, a real challenge for Naminé to recreate every perfect curve, every soft pink tone in his hair and on his lips. He had an excellent eye for art, too; he made a wonderful critic, thoughtful and helpful without being callously cruel - like Larxene always was - or unwittingly crushing, like poor, tactless Vexen. She had enough of everything else she needed in her sketch book, didn't she? And the tutor had said that they could always do more still lives if they had family members willing to pose. And if her fellow students were to look through her sketchbook and see what a wonderful personal model she had - why, they'd be so jealous.  
Naminé stood from her place and wandered off to find Marluxia in his room.  
"Hey, Marluxia."  
"Hm? Naminé?"  
Marluxia had been reading a book, some title that Naminé didn't recognise, but he put it down when she entered, smiling softly at her. Such a wonderful smile... Naminé wished in the bottom of her shy little heart that she could have a smile as captivating as his.  
"Um... you're not busy, are you?"  
"Not at all. How can I help you?"  
Naminé blushed and fiddled with the end of her jacket a little, closing the door behind her.  
"I need some more still life drawings," She said (not strictly true but, she reasoned, more could never hurt), "So I was wondering if you could pose for me?"  
Marluxia laughed. It was like birdsong, but better.  
"Of course. I'll always help you out with your school work. How'd you want me?"  
Naminé waved vague little gestures with her hands at the bed, red as a beetroot.  
"You choose. Um..."  
"Um?"  
"C-could you take your shirt off, please?" Naminé blurted out before she could die of embarrassment. "I-I mean, it's for anatomy practise. Teacher said I needed more anatomy practise."  
Marluxia laughed again, slipping like ink from the bed sheets and walking over to Naminé, leaning down and ruffling her hair.  
"Oh, you're cute." He murmured, looking deep into her eyes. "Do you want a free strip tease with that?"  
If it was possible, Naminé blushed even darker, hastily looking away.  
"I'm f-fine."  
Marluxia had somehow already unbuttoned his shirt, and effortlessly he slid it from his shoulders.  
Oh, _wow_.  
"So," He said, cupping Naminé's chin and forcing her to meet his gaze and not have her stare at his impressive torso. Just how long did he work out to keep his body in that shape, Naminé found herself giddily wondering.  
"How do you want me?" He asked, and it sounded less like he was asking about a pose for art practice, and more like he wanted _sex_. Naminé mumbled something that even she didn't quite catch, and all of their own accord her hands pressed themselves against Marluxia's stomach and propelled him towards the bed. He laughed at her, not maliciously, and before he sat down he caught her wrists and moved her hands upwards, over each bump of a well defined muscle, to his chest and with it her vision rose until there were his eyes again, so blue, so deep, so...  
When his lips captured hers she barely even noticed, swallowed entirely by just _him_, and he dropped down into the springy mattress with her on his naked chest, finding the right curve of her back as he kissed her again and again, so softly, so gently. It was wonderful and Naminé was caught in ecstasy. Everything melted away, even the original vision of drawing Marluxia lounging on the bed, or something, because actually lounging on the bed _with_ Marluxia was just so much better.  
Eventually he pulled away with one last, gentle tug at her bottom lip.  
"Want to take this further?"  
It wasn't a request - of course, Marluxia was too nice for that - just an offer. But Naminé didn't feel like making that much of a commitment, as perfect as it would be. So she sleepily shook her head, wrapping her arms hopefully around Marluxia's chest.  
"Can we just cuddle?"  
"Sure."  
And Marluxia's arms rested on her back, his fingertips softly stroking whatever skin they came into contact with, and he seemed to be content with just that.

---

When Naminé woke, she was in her own bed with what appeared to be a rose with petals the colour of Marluxia's hair on her desk. Oh, Marluxia. He was such a gentleman, dropping her off back in her room even after she'd fallen asleep on his chest. He'd even thought to strip her down to her underwear so she'd sleep more comfortably. He was so sweet. Naminé found her heart melting just thinking about how amazing Marluxia was. And he'd chosen _her_.  
It was Sunday today, and Naminé felt no need to move from the dip in her mattress, even when there were the sounds of an argument between Vexen and Marluxia. She was tempted to get up and tell Vexen to calm down because Marluxia was harmless, really, but... Marluxia was going to need to learn to deal with Marluxia eventually anyway, so she just settled back down. She'd get up in a minute.

---

"Ah, Vexen."  
After three weeks of almost-but-not-quite-sex, Vexen was just about ready to kill Marluxia - the only thing that was stopping him was the knowledge that Marluxia was strong where Vexen was _weak_ and Marluxia was fast where Vexen was _slow_, and Marluxia was cunning where Vexen was at the point of being simply _confused_.  
"Leave me alone."  
"When are you going to realise that that's not going to work?" Marluxia asked, approaching Vexen with cocky arrogance in his step at one of the few moments where he'd actually caught Vexen anywhere other than his room.  
"When are you going to realise that what you're doing is _illegal_?"  
"I don't see you calling the police," Marluxia replied easily. Vexen stepped back a little, affronted, and found his back hitting a wall with a vague thump.  
"I will!"  
Marluxia laughed, and it made Vexen want to kill things, or maybe scream. He was coming too close again, invading Vexen's personal space which may have been wider than most but _still_, he was too close by any standards, too close, too close.  
"I'd like to see you try."  
"I will!" Vexen repeated at Marluxia's blatantly wrong reaction, eyebrows furrowing and voice becoming just a little more shrill. "I'll get you arrested. Get sent to prison. Do all the blondes in this country a service."  
"But _oh_," Marluxia said, and in a split second his expression simply changed into one of muted horror and... betrayal? "It wasn't _rape_. You were practically _begging_ me for it, Vexen! How could you do this to me? What did I ever do to you? I thought you _loved_ me!"  
Vexen found that he couldn't reply. Marluxia's act had just been so convincing, and as neither of them had any evidence, in court it would be _his_ word against _Marluxia's_. They'd _never_ believe him if Marluxia was as good an actor as that.  
"You... you wouldn't."  
Marluxia smiled.  
"I _would_."  
"What use am I to you anyway?" Vexen demanded, full in the knowledge that he had completely and utterly lost.  
Marluxia brushed the back of his hand against Vexen's bony cheek.  
"Well, you're not much use to anybody else, are you?" He replied flippantly. Vexen was about to reply with some attempt at a cutting remark, but just then Naminé appeared in her doorway.  
"Hey, Vexen and Marluxia."  
She skipped over to them both and looked up at Marluxia with a look so hopeful that it made Vexen want to vomit all over again. As though to specifically taunt Vexen further, Marluxia leaned down and picked Naminé up in a warm embrace, kissing her nose.  
"How are you, sleeping beauty?"  
Naminé blushed and kissed Marluxia's cheek before he set her down. Vexen had to look away. That was vile.  
"Don't be mean to Vexen. He's not very good at people."  
Marluxia tutted almost apologetically.  
"He's got friends, hasn't he?"  
"Not really."  
Vexen bit his lip, glad that he wasn't facing the couple now that his face had reddened embarrassingly. Of _course_ he had friends!  
Well... no, he really didn't, but _still_.  
The two of them disappeared together somewhere else. As they slipped through another door, Vexen risked a glance. Arm in arm. Naminé had managed to fall head over heels with Marluxia, hadn't she? And he was nothing more than a _monster_.  
All the nights with Marluxia, unwanted and abusive, returned to Vexen and he had to rush to the bathroom as all the contents of his breakfast pushed back up his throat in defiant, revolted rebellion.

---

"Fucking hell, _Marluxia_!"  
The handcuffs were being put to good use again. Naminé was at college and Vexen was at work; what better an opportunity for Larxene and Marluxia to catch up on some much-needed old friend bonding? Or, in this case, bond_age_.  
"This all you got?"  
"This all _you_ got?"  
"I have plenty more. You've just got to ask."  
"_Ungh_... Go faster then, you moron,"  
"Oh, no. You have to ask _nicely_."  
"That _is_ asking nicely!"  
"Beg me."  
"God da-ah! _Marluxia!_"  
"_Beg_."  
... And so on. Once they were finished, and done clearing up the kitchen so it _didn't_ look like they'd enthusiastically been having sex on the counter, they flopped onto Larxene's bed to chat.  
"You know, you _have_ changed. Bloody sadist."  
Larxene was sprawled over Marluxia's chest, idly running fingers over the impressive welts she'd managed to dig into the smooth skin. In a few places he was even bleeding, and she leaned down to sweep her tongue over each laceration, feeling the warm, metallic taste of blood on her lips. Delicious.  
"Everybody changes," Marluxia replied with a shrug, fingers clenching just a little tighter in Larxene's hair as she none-too-gently cleaned out each cut.  
"How's your endeavour with Vexen going?"  
"Oh, I'm working on Naminé as it is, actually."  
"You _slut_." Larxene murmured affectionately, shifting against him as she reached down to pull her duvet over the top of them. No need to move just yet; it'd be hours before Naminé got home, and then another until Vexen would even think of returning. "Anyway, it's not like Naminé's anything special," She continued. "She's a sweet little thing, but not so noticeable when it comes down to it."  
"She's blonde." Marluxia stated as that constituted as an explanation for everything.  
"Yeah, well, so is _Vexen_."  
"Why do you think I'm working my way into his pants?"  
"I thought you were going after Naminé," Larxene replied sleepily.  
"You're a woman," Marluxia said; "You ought to be able to appreciate the finer nuances of multitasking."  
Larxene raised her eyebrows a little.  
"Just as long as you make sure that they know it's just fun and you're not in love with them or anything," She said at length. "And you play it square."  
"You say that like I _wouldn't_," Marluxia replied flippantly with a flash of that winning smile. Larxene rolled her eyes.  
"Just checking."  
"No need to worry. I don't break hearts. I just play with them."

---

And then there were the dreams.  
Vexen had never even realised how much he _cared_, cared about being accepted by other people - which of course he never had been. But with Marluxia's hot, flirtatious whispers in his ear and fingers and lips that danced over his body, there came dreams of having sexual partners he actually would want, and partners at all; in friendship, at work, in school projects so for once he wasn't working on his own. Some of them were conjured by his own imagination, others strikingly familiar to those who had shunned him before. With every burning, undesired touch, Marluxia also brought a sense of hope - if _he_ was so interested, there would be others out there who were too, wouldn't there?  
That thought in mind, Vexen barely even noticed as the months progressed how little he'd begun to fight against Marluxia's invasions, even as they grew more intimate, more daring...  
And during the day Marluxia still charaded around with Naminé, poor little oblivious Naminé... Vexen knew full well what Marluxia did with Larxene let alone himself, but every time he saw the youngest of the household his throat tightened and he knew he could never break the truth to her - not even about Marluxia and Larxene. He was like a perfect boyfriend to her, attentive and gentle and gracious and generous just like Vexen wished somebody would be to him. They went out on dates, and Naminé would come back in the night in Marluxia's arms, sleepy and drunk on his achingly beautiful charisma. He'd drop her off in her bed, wait for her to fall asleep... and then fuck Larxene into submission upstairs. It made Vexen physically sick every time he heard them pretending like they were being quiet about it, and Naminé didn't even _know_... But even worse was Marluxia and _him_.  
He asked Marluxia about it once.  
"Does Naminé even know what you're doing to me?"  
Marluxia had him face down tonight, and had decided to in some ironic gesture of innocence braid his long, blonde hair before doing whatever lewd activity it was he'd chosen tonight. The handcuffs were still there, pulling Vexen's hands uncomfortably behind his back - and crushed between the small of his back and Marluxia, who'd decided to sit right there so with every automatic, spasmodic twitch of Vexen's fingers he was practically being stroked.  
And with every movement that Vexen _did_ make, inadvertently sexual or not, Marluxia simply laughed like Vexen was just there as some sort of amusement, a toy with which to play - and break.  
"This is our little secret," He murmured, tugging at Vexen's braids with both the harshness and laughable gentleness that Vexen had come to expect. "Nobody needs to know."  
"You're sick."  
"So you've told me."  
The last braid of twenty or more complete, Marluxia leaned back and admired his handiwork.  
"So, are you finally ready to go the whole way?"  
Vexen started.  
"What? _No!_"  
"I'm tired of waiting, Vexen."  
Vexen twisted and thrashed beneath Marluxia's heavy weight.  
"Don't think that I'll _ever_ let-!"  
"I'll take that as a yes."  
"_No_!!"  
Vexen didn't even know when Marluxia had managed to slick his hands with some viscous liquid, but suddenly he was acutely aware of a palm making its way up to the crook of his knee, then the inside of his bared thigh (the first thing Marluxia always did, after all, was make sure that all inconvenient clothes are as far away as possible). He opened his mouth to scream, all muscles tensing and tightening automatically. And he'd just almost managed to convince himself that Marluxia was going to let him off with just felatio and inappropriate touches...  
He felt a hand cover his mouth and accidentally bit down on the inside of his own cheek. Blood filled his mouth and covered his tongue in a hot, bittersweet taste.  
"_Yes_."  
He closed his eyes tightly and fought against the handcuffs until his muscles screamed where his voice fell short and inadequate. But Marluxia was stronger, holding him down until he was _forced_ to relax, too tired to fight further.  
"Just lie still," Marluxia said with affection in his voice, and Vexen could almost feel his half-lidded smile again. "Just relax. It'll be a whole lot easier."  
He tried to speak, but it just became a helpless moan against Marluxia's restrictive hand.  
"Trust me. The first time always hurts. It'll be better the next time."  
"-Mph!"  
He felt fingers first, and whatever Marluxia said he thrashed again, mind focused on one thought and one thought alone: _  
_

... It was a long night.

When, finally, Marluxia pulled away from Vexen's aching and exhausted body, he was simply too tired to be relieved. He had never even realised how much something supposedly pleasurable could _hurt_. But he had no energy left, no energy to strike out Marluxia or even spit a foul curse in his direction. It was to his intense surprise - and absolutely no physical reaction at all - that Marluxia, after a few minutes and apparently dressed, draped a towel over his midriff and with uncharacteristic gentleness and care, lifted him from the bed into his arms. A kiss fell on his lips like one last, humiliating mockery. Then Marluxia carried him over to the door and slipped out into the corridor.  
Naminé was there, the poor hapless child who always seemed to appear at all the wrong moments.  
"Oh, my goodness! What happened to Vexen?"  
Vexen was barely even conscious, but he could hear too clearly the conversation between man and girl, innocence carefully preserved with lie upon lie upon lie.  
"I don't know," Marluxia replied, so sincere that it could have been the truth. "I think he's ill."  
"Is he okay?" Naminé said, for all the world horrified. She might have been, the poor girl seemed to be worried about everybody.  
"I'm just going to go give him a bath. I think that'll help him to relax a little."  
Naminé pressed a cool hand against Vexen's forehead, oblivious. Painfully so.  
"He's hot... do you think he's feverish?"  
Marluxia nodded gravely.  
"We'll see how he is in the morning. You should get some sleep, sweetheart. I'll sort out Vexen."  
"Okay, well... don't stay up too late."  
"I won't," Marluxia promised, leaning down to kiss Naminé with the same lips that had violated every inch of Vexen's body. He couldn't help the automatic reaction to the sheer disgust, and in his state it was little comfort to see Marluxia's chest covered in vomit. He barely registered any reaction on Naminé's part, and then she was gone back to bed and Marluxia had locked them both in the bathroom and began to fill the bath with hot, comfortingly steaming water. As soon as the taps were running on full, Marluxia pulled off his shirt and set it in to soak in the sink.  
"You've ruined my shirt."  
Vexen, propped up on the stool, thought a few choice replies about all the things that Marluxia had ruined, but his mouth was too dry and he couldn't answer.  
"You look a mess."  
Again, a hundred snarky retorts swam in Vexen's mind but none escaped his lips. Marluxia dampened a flannel and gently wiped blood and sick from Vexen's chin, looking at him with eyes so sincere that they could have actually _cared_. Vexen knew better, and faced with such blatant dishonesty he could only close his eyes - but then the images all came rushing back, too strong, too strong. When he dared to face reality again, Marluxia was pouring bubbles and sweet-smelling oils into the bath, expertly mixing some relaxing aroma in the water. As soon as there were as many bubbles as there was water, he picked Vexen up again and lowered him in. The warmth was soothing, and despite himself Vexen relaxed against the white, chipped ceramic of the bath and let Marluxia sponge him down.  
"You're so fragile," The man said offhandedly as he worked. "I've never seen anybody get in such a mess over something so simple. It's just sex."  
Vexen wondered vaguely if Marluxia had any concept whatsoever of somebody not wanting sex. He doubted it.  
"Still," - And he pulled one of about twenty bottles of shampoo down from the highest shelf, kneading it into Vexen's long hair, "You'll get used to it quickly enough. The first time is _always_ painful."  
Vexen didn't reply, beginning to play with the bubbles once he found his hands loose enough to at least work a little in the soothing water.  
"You'd have really nice hair if you'd look after it properly," Marluxia continued after a while, washing out the first lot of shampoo and picking out another. "You should wash it every day, it's naturally greasy so it needs at least that. And you should get conditioners that are right for your hair type. Mine'll do for now but it would look so much nicer if you actually put in some effort. Bring out that lovely blonde colour."  
Vexen rolled his eyes. Normally he just stole shampoo from Larxene or Naminé. And conditioner? He'd never even really thought about it. Perfect hair was something that girls had, not men, and just because he didn't cut it didn't mean that he wanted to be effeminate. But Marluxia, on his third lot of conditioner now, didn't seem to understand. Spoiled brat.  
"You can speak, you know." Marluxia said eventually as he showered out the last of the lather from Vexen's hair, leaning down to kiss Vexen's cheek. "I'm not out to hurt you."  
Vexen wanted to sink miserably down into the water and cry, but it would be humiliating to say the least to loose face in front of Marluxia, so he stood strong and refused to reply, frowning and biting his lip. Marluxia simply sighed a little, dipping two fingers into the now luke warm water to test the temperature.  
"Come on, can you get out or do I need to carry you to bed?"  
"Just go away."  
"Still playing at being unwilling?" Marluxia said with a faint grin, pulling the plug and forcing Vexen out of the water. "I see how it is."  
_No, you don't,_ Vexen thought. _You think that this is all a front and I'm just trying to be difficult. You're so convinced that everybody loves you that you can't even realise that I don't._  
Marluxia seemed to enjoy toweling Vexen down just a little bit too much, still offering little snippets of useless advice as he did.  
"You should eat more. You're terribly thin. And have you ever considered using moisturiser? It'll stop your skin chapping, like that. Come on, I'll take you to my room and I'll blow dry your hair."  
Vexen truthfully just wanted to go to bed, but he wasn't sure if he could face his own room so once the towel was wrapped firmly around his waist he padded after Marluxia, still wondering blankly what the hell had just happened. His mind didn't seem to be capable of encompassing the scope of Marluxia's apparent swing from being abusive and violent to gentle and caring in the space of just a few minutes, so it was apparently trying to block everything else out instead. So even though he'd always thought that if anything like this were to happen to him, he'd scream and kick and call the police, he found himself perching obediently on Marluxia's ridiculously springy double bed, having his hair first dried then straightened like he was some kind of Barbie doll for Marluxia to play with, only male and nearly thirty and naked and as confused and scared as hell.  
"There we go."  
Marluxia finally set down the straighteners, and came to sit next to Vexen, wrapping an arm around his shoulders that would be comforting if it wasn't _him_.  
"Cheer up."  
Vexen looked incredulously at Marluxia. _Cheer up_? Like _hell_ was he going to cheer up. If he felt better, he'd slap Marluxia one, and maybe even fuck him right back to see how _he_ felt about it. But he didn't, so he just leaned away from Marluxia, inspecting one of the many posters on his wall.  
"Is that _you_?"  
"Hm? Oh, I did a bit of modelling when I was in America. Like it?"  
"You're _naked_."  
"Best way, if I do say so myself."  
Vexen rolled his eyes, turning back to the real life Marluxia who was at least wearing half of his clothes.  
"What's wrong with you?"  
Marluxia chuckled, for once the first to look away.  
"I wouldn't like to say."  
"I mean it," Vexen pressed. "What stick have you got up your arse that you think you're so amazing? You just expect everybody to love you all the time like you're a God, or something. And you go around lying like everybody will just drink it all up..."  
"I thought you'd appreciate me not telling Naminé the truth about us." Marluxia replied softly.  
"You were just dodging the blame for what you did," Vexen retorted. "So you just _lied_ in her face, knowing that I wouldn't say anything to disagree."  
"Would you rather I have said that we had sex?" Marluxia asked evenly. Vexen had to admit that he was right; he'd never have lived down the shame because even if Naminé was decent enough to be nothing more than quietly sympathetic, she'd no doubt accidentally tell Larxene and he'd _never_ hear the end of it from her. It would be worse than awful.  
"I suppose."  
Marluxia smiled again, hands drifting onto Vexen's freshly pruned skin.  
"So cheer up. Life's not so bad."  
"Easy for you to say."  
"Hm?"  
"Well, you're just... Everybody loves you," Vexen blurted out. Marluxia scoffed, leaning backwards onto the bed and pulling Vexen gently, ever so gently, down with him.  
"It's not love, Vexen. Don't get confused. It's only lust."  
"Naminé damn near loves you." Vexen said, thinking back to all of the times that the two of them had kissed, and all the dirty secrets hidden behind Marluxia's lips.  
"I can't help how others feel," Marluxia said, yawning and apparently tired of this conversation. He rolled over and found the heavy duvet, kicking off his trousers as he crawled underneath. "You going back to your own bed or are you going to join me?"  
Vexen was caught in a dilemma between trying to go back - alone - to the mess that was his own room, or crawl into the warm and comfortable looking bed right in front of him. With Marluxia.  
Eventually it was the stupid and tired side of his mind that won, and Vexen climbed sleepily under the covers. But he still made sure to stay as far away from Marluxia as possible - until he was grabbed with determined hands and yanked into Marluxia's arms.  
"What's the point of sharing a bed unless we cuddle?"  
"It's just because I can't be bothered to go back and change mine," Vexen retorted, trying _not_ to be comfortable in the silkily soft bedding and piles and piles of pillows. "Don't give yourself airs."  
Marluxia chuckled, leaning over to turn off the lamp.  
"Of course. You keep telling yourself that."

Vexen tried to sleep badly, he honestly did. But the bed was so comfortable and Marluxia was so warm, and the bath had made him sleepily content...


	5. 4 When You Start Wondering Why

...When he woke up, Vexen was back in his own bed, and Naminé was shaking his shoulder as gently as she possibly could. He felt like warm death, sore and shaky from last night with Marluxia, and awfully nauseous and light-headed.  
"Hey. Vexen. You okay?"  
He realised that Larxene was hanging around behind Naminé with the demeanour of somebody who didn't want to be where she was, and Marluxia was quietly conversing with her in the doorway. Seeing Vexen wake, he disappeared. Larxene followed.  
"Vexen?"  
Vexen's thoughts felt heavy and sluggish; it took him several moments to reply and when he did it was less than eloquent.  
"What?"  
Naminé frowned, and rested a cool palm to Vexen's forehead.  
"You're hot," She announced. "I think you've got a fever. Honestly, no wonder you were so bad last night. You should take better care of yourself."  
Vexen wanted to argue that he wasn't feverish at all, and it was Marluxia who had made him "so bad", but his throat felt suddenly parched and he couldn't speak. Naminé passed him a spoonful of medicine and a glass of warming tea.  
"Stay in bed today," She said firmly, every inch the doting nurse. "And if you're not feeling better by tomorrow I'm taking you to the doctor's."  
"I'm fine," Vexen managed to insist, but Naminé was having none of it, shovelling the spoon into his mouth and forcing him to swallow.  
"Men," She said disapprovingly. "Just can't admit when anything's wrong, can you? Honestly, where would you be without us women to look after you?" And she chuckled a little, rearranging the duvet around Vexen so that he at least looked comfortable to her, even if he never could be because of the terrible ache that Marluxia had instilled in his body, and the vile disgust that kept his mind from ever being at ease. He wondered if Marluxia knew what it was like to be so thoroughly violated, and came to the conclusion that if he did, he didn't care.  
Naminé seemed to sense that Vexen was wrapped up in his own thoughts, and although she opened her mouth as though to say something, she thought better for it and took her leave without another word.  
As evening arrived, Vexen was forced to stagger out of bed to the bathroom and violently throw up what precious little was left in his stomach. Naminé called the doctor. Flu. Vexen was prescribed anti viral tablets and a week in bed at the very least.  
Larxene was disinterested, of course, and maybe even a little smug that Vexen had succumbed to illness while she was healthy. Naminé cared like she habitually cared about everybody, but she was busy with her final college project and didn't really have the time to look after Vexen. So he'd resigned himself to a week of blissful solitude while his body recovered.  
Marluxia popped in late at night when the girls were in bed, with a cup of Ovaltine and a hot water bottle. Vexen was honestly surprised, and slightly disgruntled that what he saw as the embodiment of evil should see fit to actually be nice to him.  
"Hey."  
"Leave me alone."  
Marluxia sighed at the instant rejection he was presented with.  
"Vexen," He said evenly, lifting the covers and lying the hot water bottle carefully across the older man's stomach, "I'm not out to hurt you."  
Vexen scoffed disbelievingly, and tried to be uncomfortable. So Marluxia continued.  
"I've got what I wanted," He said. "I'm a man of my word; if you want me to go away now, I will. It's up to you."  
Vexen scowled at the pink haired man.  
"Why did you have to do that?"  
Marluxia sat down on the covers and trapped a lock of Vexen's dusty blonde hair between his fingertips. It slid easily and softly past his skin and fell back against Vexen's face.  
"Goodness knows nobody else would."  
"That isn't a reason," Vexen persisted. "You knew I didn't want it. You just went on ahead and decided to do whatever the hell you wanted. Why? You've got Naminé for romance and Larxene for sex. Why did you feel the need for _me_?"  
Marluxia shrugged.  
"Do you want me to be honest?"  
Vexen swallowed thickly, knowing that Marluxia wouldn't have asked if the truth wasn't going to hurt, and nodded.  
"You're blonde."  
"Oh." Vexen said, feeling his heart sink anyway because he'd still been hoping for some nice, encouragingly positive reason that would sort of make it just a little bit worth it, like "I think you're attractive", or something - but his hair colour? That was the only explanation?  
As though to mock him further, Marluxia patted Vexen's hair with a small, perfect and emotionless smile.  
"Sleep well, Vexen."  
As soon as Marluxia was gone, Vexen rolled over and tried - failed - not to cry. So he was blonde. The one redeeming factor that made him worth anything in Marluxia's eyes: he was blonde. He wasn't pretty, or interesting, or even bearable bar his hair colour. At least Larxene and Naminé had some sort of other quality about them; Naminé was the sweetest little thing and Larxene was both beautiful and feisty. But Vexen was just blonde and that was it.  
There wasn't even an apology - Vexen might have felt better for a "Sorry, I couldn't help myself" or a "Sorry, I wouldn't have done that if I'd known you were coming down with the flu" or any sort of remorse at all, no matter how fake. But Marluxia didn't even seem to care. Vexen was blonde. It was a ticket to open legs and easy release, all other factors pushed aside. He was blonde.  
He curled up in a miserable bundle of bones and pale skin around the hot water bottle, and slowly fell into a fitful, feverish sleep.

* * *

Three days later, the worst of the fever over, more bad news came in the form of a knock on Vexen's door some time in mid afternoon. Larxene.  
"Hey, Vexen. We have a problem."  
Vexen, who'd been sorting out paperwork and general administration business and emailing it to and from work in his absence, sighed and looked up. He knew what the problem was going to be. Same as it always was.  
"Money."  
"Three hundred pounds for the roof."  
"What happened to it?"  
"Half the tiling came off in that storm the other night."  
"Ask Marluxia."  
"He's already paying for a new fridge."  
"What happened to the other one?"  
"It broke. Last night."  
Vexen massaged his temples a little, scowling.  
"Look, I really don't have the money for-"  
"The missing tiling is right above your room."  
"... Fine. I'll get it to you as soon as I'm better."  
Larxene, hanging around in the doorway - she never came into Vexen's room any more than that - shook her head.  
"Sorry. We need it now. We're two months behind on bills as it is."  
Vexen bit his lip and resisted the urge to swear. The world seemed hell bent on making his life a misery right now, didn't it? There was only one thing to do and that was-  
"I'll pay Marluxia back later."  
Larxene nodded, satisfied, and skipped away from the door. It clicked closed and Vexen was, once again, alone.

"Hey, Nam."  
Naminé was still fiddling with numbers on the kitchen table, adding and subtracting with a feverish passion. Well, mostly subtracting. Money was scarce. At Larxene's arrival, she instantly stopped and glanced up, numbers tumbling from her head.  
"Yes?"  
"Vexen says he'll pay Marluxia the three hundred quid for the roof back when he gets a change to visit a cash machine."  
Naminé nodded, turning back and crossing off that expense from the list.  
"But you know that it's going to cost more than that, don't you."  
"Just get more off him," Larxene said, taking a seat next to Naminé and pulling the nearest logbook over to check through their abysmal accounts. "Vexen won't remember how much we asked for in the state he's in."  
Naminé nodded, reluctantly, and pencilled in a note.  
"Can we do it ourselves?" She asked. "That way we'd only have to pay for the tiles. We could reuse some."  
"I'd like to see _you_ try to retile a roof," Larxene replied with a bitter laugh. "Marluxia, the pretentious bastard, wouldn't get a single finger dirty for something like that, Vexen's merrily dying in bed, and _I'm_ certainly not doing it."  
"We could cover it in a tarpaulin, or something," Naminé mused, stretching until her back clicked.  
"What would we pin it down with?"  
"I dunno. Tiles? The garden is scattered with them."  
"If you want to go with some cheap option that will just cost us more in the future, that's fine by me," Larxene scoffed, glaring at the accounts. "Fucking hell, everything in this place is falling to pieces. We'd be better off letting it fall down and living in the shed."  
What neither of them said was that Marluxia was supposed to have fixed all of these problems when he arrived with all his riches and charisma... but what neither of them wanted to do even more was actually be forced to beg money off him. Because the man didn't simply offer like either of them had hoped, and having to keep coming back for more and more and more was nothing short of humiliating.  
Naminé returned to the ledgers and sighed.  
"Maybe I should quit college and get a job like I should have done before."  
But Larxene vehemently shook her head.  
"No. We said we'd stick this out, didn't we? And that's what we're going to do. I bet Vexen's got more money that he's clinging onto, the Scrooge."  
"He's not exactly paid much..." Naminé mumbled doubtfully.  
"He's got a degree in environmental sciences," Larxene pointed out. "I bet you he gets paid one hell of a lot more than me."  
Still Naminé didn't seem satisfied.  
"But if he was paid more he probably wouldn't still be living with us, would he?"  
Larxene just shrugged a little. She didn't understand Vexen, and was never going to bother pretending to.  
"Hell if I know what's going on in his crazy scientist brain."  
Naminé looked down and doodled a sad face in the ledger, and didn't seem convinced.  
"I s'pose."  
"Maybe he's just staying here because he can't be bothered to move anywhere else?" Larxene offered. "He's not the kind of person who likes change, is he? An extra hundred quid isn't going to kill him. Don't worry about it."  
"What's next?" Naminé asked, and she seemed to be eager to change the subject. She skimmed down the post it notes pulled from the now deceased fridge and sighed. "Marluxia found a cockroach."  
"Oh, for the love of-"

* * *

By the next evening, the price of repairing the roof had hiked to four hundred and sixty pounds, and looked set to increase even further because the moisture was beginning to set into the wood and if they weren't careful the house would start rotting, too.  
When it began to rain, Naminé scurried down to the shed and pulled out a tarpaulin that she could barely even lift, and ferried it with a rickety ladder to Vexen's end of the house where the worst of the damage was. Larxene and Marluxia were out somewhere so she worked alone, collecting broken tiles from the garden and carrying them over to the ladder under the cover of a wide, black umbrella. The damage, she saw with a sinking heart at the top of the ladder, was worse than they'd thought. Whole chunks of plaster were beginning to crack, the only thing keeping the rain from Vexen's room.  
Naminé set to work hauling the tarp up onto the roof, laying it out across the hole and weighing it down with tiles. She nearly fell, once, and could have sworn that her heart skipped a beat, but eventually - and drenched by the rain - she felt confident that the tarp wouldn't give out, and crawled back inside. She met Vexen on the landing, wrapped up in a towel and looking - like he always did - a little uncomfortable, but otherwise a great deal healthier.  
"You feeling better?" She asked as she shivered and pulled away her wet jacket. The rain was absolutely beating down now, reverberating through the whole shaky house.  
Vexen nodded a little, looking over Naminé's dishevelled appearance.  
"What happened to you?"  
Naminé pointed up to the ceiling, sloped in this part of the house where the roof cascaded down.  
"I put a tarp over the roof. It didn't look like it would hold out through the rain."  
"All by yourself?"  
"Yeah."  
"That must have taken a long time."  
Naminé shrugged, not wanting to admit that she'd spent hours in the rain dragging heavy tiles up onto the roof.  
"Not especially."  
And then she exploded into a little sneeze and laughed sheepishly.  
"Oh, God," Said Vexen. "Not you, too."  
"I'll be fine once I get these wet clothes off," Naminé promised, gesturing as though to pop into her room to grab warm, dry pyjamas.  
Vexen considered this.  
"I'll make you a hot chocolate, shall I."  
"That'd be great. Thanks."  
It wasn't until Naminé was in her room, towelling down her hair, that she realised just how _odd_ the thought of Vexen offering to do something for somebody else was. Vexen didn't do _anything_ for anyone else, and expected nothing in return; perhaps his recent bout of the flu had made him feel as though he was in debt somehow to Naminé who'd brought him food and drink while he was bedridden. Maybe he was just in a curious mood.  
But then again, Vexen was always in a curious mood. And anyway, more importantly, he _never_ wandered around the house without any clothes on.  
Naminé considered asking Vexen about this, but couldn't work out a way of not sounding fairly odd in doing so by the time she reached the kitchen, so she just nodded in Vexen's direction and thanked him encouragingly for the hot chocolate. It was thick and creamy, unlike the thin, watery stuff that Naminé usually made because it took too long to boil milk in the pan to make proper hot chocolate. The only thing missing was marshmallows.  
They sat opposite to each other at the kitchen table, Naminé thinking about how she ought to have been doing school work, and Vexen idly flicking through the local newspaper.  
"Are you getting on better with Marluxia now?"  
Vexen froze, hand halfway through turning a page, looked down and didn't reply. Naminé felt a little disappointed. Marluxia was a wonderful person, why didn't Vexen see that?  
"Naminé?" Vexen said quietly after a few moments of awkward silence, taking a sip of his coffee. "This is going to sound so stupid, but..." He bit his lip, as though hesitant as to whatever he wanted to say. "I just... do you think I'm ugly?"  
"Well," Naminé replied instantly, "Not per _say_. I mean, it's not like you-"  
But Vexen had already put his hand up for silence, head hanging.  
"You can be honest, you know," He told her.  
"Is this about Larxene?"  
Vexen scoffed.  
"Larxene?" He said disbelievingly, flipping another page hard enough to create a millimetre rip alongside its spine. "Like I ever had a chance with _Larxene_."  
Naminé's eyebrows knitted together a little and she glanced away. Poor Vexen. He must have been so lonely...  
"Sorry," He clipped briskly after another awkward moment. "Forget I said anything." He looked down at himself and sighed half-heartedly. "I should just go and put some clothes on. Nobody needs to see this."  
He picked up his coffee and his newspaper, and headed for the door. Naminé wasn't sure why, but she stopped him with one hand on his thin, pale arm. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she noticed that he had freckles on his shoulders. Nowhere else, just his shoulders and the very tops of his forearms. How curious...  
"Look," She said desperately, because even if it was just Vexen she didn't want to see anybody upset, "I know you're... I mean. It'll just take time, you know? You just have to find the right person."  
Vexen smiled a little sadly and shook his head.  
"Don't be naive. What've I honestly got going for me?"  
Naminé didn't know what to say, so she pretended to assume that it was a rhetorical question. Vexen appeared to find this amusing.  
"Hah!" He murmured under his breath as he pulled his arm away. "At least I'm _blonde_."  
Naminé didn't understand, but there was something almost accusing in Vexen's tone of voice that disturbed her to her core.

* * *

Somehow the three blondes of the house managed to pull together enough money to meet most of the demands of the ageing house without pleading _too_ much from Marluxia, and the bills weren't paid too late, and even though the tarp did collapse along with the plaster holding up Vexen's ceiling, they managed to get the roof fixed for a reasonable enough price, according to the builder who assessed the damage. There were still a few issues - mainly the fact that the rest of the roof would probably collapse in a few months anyway to the tune of at least a thousand more pounds - but at least Vexen's room wasn't flooded when yet another depression swept across the country and splattered them all with rain. Instead, it was full of plaster.  
Vexen let out a sigh as he swept up the last of the largest pieces and dumped them into the bin. He had a lovely hole in his ceiling too, now, which gaped at him with a certain menace as he twisted and turned uncomfortably in bed on the last night he could afford to take off from work.  
He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it wasn't illness or the jeering mouth on the ceiling. It wasn't even Marluxia, who was slowly becoming a distant memory.  
That hurt, actually. That hurt a lot. As soon as the man had marked his territory inside Vexen's body, he'd just left without so much as a by-your-leave. It was like it was some huge joke, like sex to Marluxia just meant a competition to screw every blonde in the world. That was probably why he'd come back to England, Vexen thought sourly. There probably weren't any more blondes left for that slut to fuck.  
But that was all in the past, now, and Vexen had no intention of ever repeating the experience.  
What was so good about sex, anyway? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. It was messy and painful, both physically and emotionally. Vexen remembered having a sort of romantic view of sex, once upon a time. But that was before Larxene's drunken desperation, and Marluxia's callous rape.  
_Rape_.  
Vexen found himself turning the word over and over in his mind. _Was_ it rape? Was rape something that could happen to a man? Was it rape, if Vexen didn't scream, couldn't fight, never told a soul?  
What did it matter anyway? Nobody would ever know. Nobody _could_ ever know. The shame would be too much to ever bear.  
He woke feeling a little better, but even that was brief and fleeting.

* * *

"What do you think?"  
Naminé's artwork had been proudly spread out on the kitchen table that morning after Larxene had left for work; she'd finished her project now and wanted Marluxia's professional opinion before she took it in for marking tomorrow at college. She was certainly pleased with the results, and Marluxia seemed to be, too, looking over each sketch and test and finally the final painting with a little smile on his lips.  
"It looks wonderful."  
He ghosted his fingers across Naminé's masterpiece, careful not to touch the canvas for risk of smudging the paints. Naminé was blushing.  
"Thanks,"  
"You've really caught the light in this one."  
"Yeah, I was really pleased with that."  
Marluxia smiled again, affectionately ruffling Naminé's hair as he turned away to pull something from the fridge.  
"I think I shall miss our little... _sessions_, don't you?"  
If anything, Naminé's flush darkened further.  
"Y-yeah."  
"Still, I'm sure the practice can't do you any harm."  
Naminé giggled a little, shuffling her papers back into order and lying the canvas back down on the floor. Splitting image, if she dared to say so herself. The subject? Marluxia - of course.  
"Marluxia?" She found herself asking nervously after a few moments of silence.  
"Hrm?"  
"C-can I ask you something?"  
"Of course,"  
"What's your secret?"  
Marluxia's head popped out from behind the fridge door, a questioning look on his perfect features.  
"What do you mean by that, then?"  
Naminé fiddled with her thumbs a little.  
"You know - to being so perfect. You're so gorgeous, and everybody loves you... how do you do it?"  
Marluxia chuckled a little, coming over to sit by Naminé. Apparently having found nothing in the fridge, he plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and idly tossed it from hand to hand.  
"Well, if I told you," He said lightly, "It wouldn't be a secret, would it?"  
"Yes, but-" Naminé said before she could catch herself, "I wish I could be like you. Even just a little bit. I mean, nobody ever notices me."  
Marluxia took a bite from the apple and thoughtfully chewed.  
"And I don't suppose that there's anybody in particular that you'd like to notice you?"  
The question, Naminé thought as she furiously tried to contain another blush trying to split her cheeks, sounded curiously rhetorical. Why would Marluxia...?  
"Not you," She instantly felt the need to establish, even if she had secretly long since fallen head over heels for Marluxia's easy-going charm and perfect anatomical beauty. "I mean- as wonderful as that would be- I don't think- well, I'm really nowhere in your league, am I?"  
Marluxia laughed to himself, throwing the apple core neatly into the bin.  
"For once, I'm not referring to myself."  
"You're not?" Naminé asked, then realised that she sounded rather surprised, which wasn't polite at all. She opened her mouth to reply, but then she was interrupted. Completely, utterly interrupted.  
"I'm talking about _Larxene_."  
"L-Larxene?" Naminé managed to choke out. If she'd expected anything, it wasn't that. Marluxia laughed a little, standing and stretching, catlike and gorgeous.  
"I guess you haven't noticed, then."  
"Haven't noticed what?"  
- But Marluxia was already gone.

* * *

Ten minutes.  
That was how long Vexen managed at work before everything went to hell. Just two days to go until pay day when he'd finally have enough money to pay back Marluxia for the roof, and... ten minutes.  
The manager asked to see him - which he'd sort of expected - so he'd tucked his doctor's certificate safely into his pocket, and wordlessly made his way up to the office.  
"Ah. Vexen. Please, do take a seat."  
There were two chairs in front of the manager's desk, and Vexen drew one up, faint nausea still festering in his stomach.  
"You've not been in the past week."  
Vexen pulled out the certificate and laid it on the desk in front of his boss.  
"I had the flu. I emailed a lot of my work in, and if there's anything-"  
The manager brushed it aside.  
"We coped well enough without you."  
Not picking up the curious wording, Vexen nodded, sitting back.  
"Good. I was worried."  
"That is to say," The manager amended, standing, "We actually coped _better_ without you."  
"I'm sorry?"  
"Vexen," The manager said, and for all the world he could have been regretful, "There have been several... complaints... against your behaviour, from your colleagues."  
"Behaviour?" Vexen echoed incredulously.  
"To put it a little more bluntly, you are a pain to work with."  
Perhaps the Vexen that had never felt the helpless pain and humiliation of Marluxia would have spluttered indignantly, thrown a tantrum, demanded more than he deserved - but this Vexen was still stinging, still hurting inside and still desperately clinging to anything that would make him feel useful. This Vexen was feeling his entire life slipping and sliding away as easily as Marluxia's fingers had pressed inside his body, so many nights ago.  
"To cut a long story short," The manager finished, "Last week only went to show that you are no longer an asset to the company."  
Vexen didn't dare ask about this month's pay as he nodded silently, and shuffled away.

* * *

It was raining again that evening when Vexen didn't return home. The other three were settling down for a meal that Naminé had managed to rustle up using the leftovers in the fridge, and it was only the youngest of the household that seemed to care.  
"Where's Vexen?"  
"Working late, I suppose." Larxene said, grabbing her tray as quickly as she shrugged off any worry as to Vexen's whereabouts.  
Naminé glanced doubtfully outside.  
"He doesn't normally work late on Wednesdays."  
"Maybe he wanted to make up for the time he took off?"  
"I... I guess so."  
They all went their separate ways to eat; Marluxia presumably went up to his own room and from the kitchen Naminé could hear the TV blaring as Larxene curled up on the sitting room sofa.  
Outside, the rain poured.

* * *

Outside, the rain poured. It had long since soaked Vexen to saturation point, but he didn't know where to go. He'd driven home, feeling empty, earlier that day, but he knew that Marluxia and Naminé would be home and he couldn't take facing either of them, or trying to explain why he was home so early.  
So he walked until he found a bridge that spanned a roaring, flooded river, stood in the middle and looked down until the night drew in and all hope felt lost.  
He'd have to go job-seeking. There wasn't much in terms of work, even if you _did_ have a degree in environmental sciences, and certainly not in this small town. He'd have to move somewhere. Maybe to the City. No - like he'd ever be able to afford even the smallest of hell holes there. But he'd have to move somewhere cheaper.  
At least moving would mean no more awful Marluxia. But it also meant no more Naminé, and she was the only one who really seemed to care. Maybe he could go crawling back to his parents. But at thirty? Unthinkable.  
So Vexen had no job, no friends, and no house (well, he sort of did - but for the sake of misery, that was a no).  
He looked down at the swirling waters a hundred feet below him and shuddered, stepping quickly away.  
And no spine, either. No wonder Marluxia had found it so easy to simply take what he wanted.  
It was only sex, Vexen tried to convince himself. It was only sex, and it was only Marluxia - it didn't deserve this much thought, this much worry, this much heartache. But it had _hurt_, not just physically but inside too, and it made Vexen want to scream every time he so much as imagined Marluxia's heartless, perfect smile.  
... It wasn't until later that Vexen plastered on if not a brave face, one of only generic displeasure rather than emotional agony and trudged home through the torrential downpour of rain.


	6. 5 So Happy I Could Die

It was gone midnight by the time Vexen crawled back to the house, and the rain had eased off a little to make way for a chilly night of clear, starry skies. Necessity had brought him back. He was just too cold, too wet and too tired to stay brooding on the bridge. So home he returned, in through the front door and up the darkened staircase to his room. With any luck, the others would all be in bed and nobody would see him in this pathetic state. Vexen resolved to crawl underneath his duvet and not leave for at least a week.  
He reached the landing and saw light through the crack of his door. He'd not left it on that morning, had he?  
Terrified that maybe Marluxia was waiting for him inside, Vexen hesitantly pushed open the door and peeked through, ready to flee to the bathroom as soon as he caught even the tiniest splash of pink hair. But there wasn't one. _Naminé_ was sitting on his bed in her pyjamas, crying.  
"N... Naminé?"  
She looked up, eyes outlined red with tracks running down her cheeks.  
"Vexen."  
Vexen gave her a concerned look as he tiptoed into the room, letting the door hang ajar behind him.  
"This is my room...?"  
Naminé grabbed a tissue from the box laid out next to her and sniffed at it, gripping the flimsy fabric like without it she'd crack.  
"I was so worried about you..."  
Vexen, honestly didn't understand.  
"Why?"  
"Where were you?" Naminé demanded hoarsely, her big, baby blue eyes glaring Vexen down with nothing less than pleading helplessness. "You never came home! You're soaked! It's nearly one in the morning, where _were_ you?"  
Vexen swallowed thickly, prising his sodden jacket from his shoulders. His shirt had come untucked somewhere along the line, his tie worked loose somehow. He pulled the damn thing off and laid it down, wherever. It wetted a paper on the desk, useless now.  
"What are you doing in my room?"  
"What am I doing?" Naminé echoed. "What am I _doing_? I was _waiting for you_!"  
Suddenly Vexen's mind flashed back to Marluxia, hanging in the doorway in clothes too tight and a smile too perfect, and it took conscious effort not to physically reel backwards.  
"Why bother?"  
"You're always home by nine," Naminé insisted. "You're always home by nine and it's one o'clock in the morning and I was so worried that something'd happened to you..."  
And she buried her face in the already impressively shredded tissue, and sobbed. Vexen found himself perplexed. Why would Naminé, who even the most optimistic person would only call Vexen's acquaintance, get herself into such a mess for four hours?  
"Well, I'm here now," He automatically snapped, no idea what else he was supposed to do, and vaguely suspicious. "So go to bed now."  
Naminé stared at him for a moment then bit her lip and stood up, collecting her tissue box and making for the door.  
"Are you okay?"  
"I'm _fine_."  
Vexen's retort seemed to snap Naminé out of herself, and she turned back round to face the bedraggled man.  
"I _mean_ it, Vexen."  
Vexen swallowed again, kept his stare on the opposite wall, and said nothing.  
"You've been acting up for weeks," Naminé pressed after a horrible span of silence. "You don't even know what's going on half the time. It's like you're walking around in some kind of daze, and I'm worried about you. That's not like you at all."  
Vexen opened his mouth to utter some under-his-breath remark about that being a _good_ thing, but suddenly his throat had decided to become like sandpaper and he couldn't speak.  
"And then," Naminé continued, and each and every word suddenly became like a knife, "You start going on about how you're so ugly, and nobody would ever like you, and at least you're _blonde_, and you looked so terrible and when you didn't come home I thought you'd jumped off a _bridge_, or something..."  
The sandpaper became rocks and burn, and it was like Naminé actually knew, actually knew what Marluxia had done, and knew that Vexen didn't have a friend or even somebody who found him tolerable, and that he'd actually looked over the bridge not two hours ago and wished, so badly, that he had the backbone to topple into the swirling waters below.  
Finally he managed to speak.  
"Just go to bed."  
He was met with a new response, equally unwittingly biting, equally innocently painful.  
"_No_."  
No, thought Vexen. No, no, no no no. No, nobody liked him, no, he'd never be happy, no, Marluxia wasn't even remotely interested, he just had a fetish for _blondes_, and no no no what ever happened he could _not_ break down and cry in front of a girl ten years his junior.  
"Please, Vexen..."  
"I don't-" Vexen began, and faltered. Naminé cared, right? She'd listen to him. She'd be willing to help him out, offer him a bit of support until he found his legs again, stopped floating aimlessly in the deep red sea.  
But she was nineteen-fucking-years-old. She was nineteen and he was nearly thirty and he couldn't, even if he knew what it was like to be fucked by another man, even if he'd felt the hot sting of humiliation after being laid off for being a jerk, even if he'd - however briefly - considered that being dead would somehow be better than being alive.  
Which was _stupid_.  
"Just go away."  
Naminé reached out to tentatively brush against Vexen's arm, and he jumped, suddenly realising that his heart was pounding in his chest and his ears and his throat, and he wanted to cry.  
"What's wrong?"  
Vexen knew full well that the moment he admitted to one thing, then everything would come pouring out, all the awful things, all the shameful things, all the secret things. And every second he hesitated it seemed to simply grow harder.  
"_Everything_."  
Naminé let out a little noise that might have been a sigh, and gently guided Vexen round to face her.  
"Look at me, Vexen."  
Vexen hissed a little. He couldn't fight those baby blues. He looked at his feet instead, smart shoes scuffed and scratched from the rain and the running.  
"Don't _look_ at me like that."  
"Vexen..."  
Vexen wanted to curl up in a ball under the duvet and cry, but he couldn't with Naminé standing stubbornly in his room. But he couldn't crack, couldn't crack, couldn't-  
Tears pressed at the corners of his eyes, hot and stinging on his skin. Furious at his body's own weakness, he tried to blink them away, but it only worsened the spread of the salty water.  
"Goddamn it," He managed to hiss, "Just leave me alone. The last thing I need is the humiliation of loosing face in front of _you_,"  
Naminé had already seen the tears. She gingerly stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around Vexen's waist, resting her head against his chest until he could feel his own heartbeat echoing against her.  
"Talk to me," She whispered.  
Vexen didn't know when anybody had last hugged him. It was probably his _mother_, the day he came home from university. Seven years ago, was that now? He hadn't really known what to do then, either.  
He tried to rub the tears away, make them stop rolling down his face like rain. But he couldn't. It was like perpetual motion, the pendulum forever swinging, and Vexen truly loathed his inability to understand human nature without presenting it with scientific analogies.  
Naminé squeezed him tight and it was like he was a plastic bottle filled to the brim because that just made more tears pour from his eyes.  
What was _wrong_ with him?  
Why was he so weak that he couldn't even keep control in front of a little _girl_?  
Why was he so physically unattractive that the only reason someone would have sex with him was by mistake or for a joke?  
Why was he so much of an _arsehole_ that not even one person wanted to be his friend?  
Of their own accord, Vexen's hands found their way onto Naminé's shoulder blades, touching them so tentatively that she'd barely be able to feel them there. He gulped, collected himself, spoke.  
"I hate myself."  
Naminé pulled away and looked so deeply into his eyes that he squirmed. She was wet now, he noticed vaguely. He'd made her wet. And he nearly choked on the irony, because it wasn't like he'd ever get a woman wet in any sort of way that might be considered an achievement.  
"What happened?"  
Vexen's lips tried to pull into a grimace and he pressed his cheek to his shoulder like somehow he could melt clean away. Naminé led him over to the bed and sat him down, passing him a tissue and gently stroking his back.  
God, he must have looked awful, a puffy eyed, half drowned rat with a drawn, grey face and hands that were beginning to shake uncontrollably as memory after memory surfaced. _God_, he just wanted to be alone and be in bed, and be asleep and maybe be drunk. He knew what drunk felt like. It felt like happiness, and Vexen wanted to be drunk. Or jump off a bridge. Or maybe get drunk and _then_ jump off a bridge, because he probably couldn't manage jumping off a bridge and getting drunk second. Then, suddenly, he wondered if perhaps he'd just gone mad. Marluxia was just a hallucination. _Naminé_ was a hallucination. Everything was one big mirage, a dream, and he'd never even woken up one morning and realised that he was Vexen, or even woken up at all.  
"What if the whole world was just pretend and I haven't even been born, I just think I'm me because I got bored and dreamt that I was pregnant with me and in a minute I'm going to wake up and everybody is actually purple?"  
Naminé's comforting hand stopped dead and suddenly Vexen wondered if normal people could come up with things like that on a whim without taking mind altering substances first.  
"What?"  
Vexen tucked his legs up by his chin.  
"Sometimes I think that's a more comforting thought than trying to deal with being me."  
Naminé hugged him again.  
"There's nothing wrong with you,"  
Vexen found it within himself to scoff.  
"If there's nothing wrong with me then why am I miserable?"  
"Everybody's miserable sometimes," Naminé said comfortingly, fingers finding Vexen's hair. He twisted and clung to her. He'd lost everything now, what was one last ounce of pride?  
"But I'm _always_ miserable," He persisted. "If it's not one thing it's another. And everything's all _my_ fault."  
"I'm sure it isn't," Naminé whispered.  
"It _is_. Always. I'm too stubborn, I'm too pedantic, I'm too argumentative, I'm too weak, I'm too stiff, I'm too ugly, I'm too tight, I'm too _blonde_..."  
With every admonition his voice rose a little more, speaking became a little more painful. _Blonde_, he cracked. He pressed his nose to Naminé's shoulder - she smelled of strawberry - and cried again. She must have felt so awkward, trying to comfort a full grown man who was reduced to this.  
"You keep saying that," She eventually whispered. "You keep saying blonde. What has you being blonde got to do with anything?"  
Vexen shook his head and couldn't speak. Naminé couldn't know. She just couldn't-  
"Does it have something to do with Marluxia?"  
"What? No!" Vexen instantly lied. How the _fuck_ could she have guessed that?  
"It's just because Larxene said something about him liking blondes, that's all," Naminé quickly explained.  
"Like Marluxia would ever be interested in _me_," Vexen spat. To that, Naminé didn't seem to have a reply. She just held him close for a few more minutes, then pulled away and began to rummage around in his drawers.  
"You should get into a dry change of clothes. Where do you keep your pyjamas- oh, that's your underwear. Sorry."  
Vexen pulled off his socks and shoes and tried to coax some life back into his damp, cold feet. He stood a little unsteadily and wobbled over to Naminé.  
"It's okay. I'm fine. You go to bed."  
Naminé shook her head.  
"I'm not leaving until you tell me what happened."  
"_Nothing_ happened," Vexen insisted, wishing with every fibre of his being that that was true.  
Naminé finally found a pair of pyjamas, and carefully turned to face Vexen.  
"I don't believe that."  
How Naminé, so timid, could manage to demand without uttering a word, Vexen didn't know. She had some kind of hidden determination inside her - the sort of opposite of Vexen, really, who made orders all over the place but when he was pressed into a corner would crumple completely.  
He hung his head, staring at his pale, bony feet.  
"I lost my job."  
"Oh, no..."  
Naminé was looking at him again, with those sympathetic eyes that were too nearly the same colour as Marluxia's, and Vexen shifted uncomfortably.  
"Because you were off sick?"  
Vexen felt his stomach twist.  
"No. Because I'm a jerk."  
Naminé reached up and pressed one hand to Vexen's chest, and through his sodden shirt he could feel the tingle of warmth from her skin.  
"You're not a jerk..."  
"I _am_," He said, glancing at her for a split second and finding himself stumbling away. The backs of his knees hit his bed and he sat down, _thump_. "I am. I'm awful. I'm a pain to work with, and that's why I don't deserve a job. I'm a pain to be around, and that's why I don't have friends."  
Somehow saying it out loud was even worse than just thinking about it, and Vexen couldn't even make his lips form the word "girlfriend".  
Naminé joined him, still clutching the pyjamas.  
"You're not that bad."  
Vexen pulled a face.  
"I feel like such an idiot."  
"You're not. You have a degree in environmental sciences."  
"Not to mention a broken mind, a broken heart and a broken body," Vexen spat out. And of all the things that Naminé could have picked up on, it had to have been _that_ one.  
"Heart...? You... you like someone?"  
Like Vexen was still trying to persist with pathetic schoolboy crushes.  
"No," He said. "It's not like that. It's just..."  
"Just...?"  
Vexen waved his hand vaguely, and gave up yet another secret.  
"I feel like I've been lied to my whole life. Everyone always makes you believe that you'll meet the perfect person, fall in love, have children or don't have children or whatever. But for some people it just doesn't work that way."  
"Just give it time and-" Naminé began, but Vexen was on a roll now.  
"And _sex_. Everyone all makes out like it's such a wonderful thing, but it's _not_, it's messy and painful and..."  
He ran out of words and fell silent again. A tear ran down the inside of his cheek and embarrassed, he wiped it away. Naminé was frowning. She wanted to stay in her bubble, Vexen realised, her little perfect world of falling in love and being happy. Fair enough.  
"You just have to find the right person," She said at length. Vexen shook his head.  
"I'm twenty-nine, Naminé. I'm twenty-nine and the only woman I've ever slept with didn't even realise that it was _me_ until after she woke up the next morning with a _hangover_."  
Naminé looked at her thumbs, which had taken to twiddling, and then back up at Vexen. She gently leaned against his shoulder.  
"You'll find someone."  
"No, I won't."  
"... You're freezing."  
The evaporating rainwater was indeed sapping Vexen's body of heat, and the heating had broken yet again, so he grimly pushed away the thought that Naminé had given up so he was right after all, and stood.  
"I'll go to bed," He said. "I'll warm up when I'm in bed."  
Naminé nodded a little, picking herself from the mattress, too.  
"Okay."  
He shooed her to the door, but before she slipped out, she turned and wrapped her arms around him in another embrace.  
"Do you want me to stay here for tonight?"  
Vexen didn't even know what he was talking about when his lips parted and let out the tiniest whisper of a "Yes, please."  
Sleeping with a nineteen-year-old? What was he coming to?  
She nodded again, and slipped out.  
"You change. I'll wait out here."  
"Okay."  
He changed quickly, even towelled down his hair a little and dragged it into something resembling a pony tail, then opened the door again and had second thoughts.  
"Actually, I think you should-"  
Naminé took his hand and bustled inside.  
"Come on."  
"R-right."  
Naminé gave him a smile that was truthfully warm, and Vexen felt compelled to return it, except his attempt was more of a grimace. She laughed a little.  
"You don't have much practice in smiling, do you?"  
Vexen couldn't find it within his heart to feel offended if it was that true, so he shook his head a little and gently made Naminé comfortable in his bed before turning out the light and slipping in too.  
"Careful, I have cold feet."  
"Oh goodness, yes. You ought to wear socks."  
"One moment."  
He climbed out again and by touch alone found his underwear drawer and a soft-ish pair of socks. He considered rifling through his possessions for gloves, too, because his hands were nearly as freezing, but wearing gloves to bed just seemed silly.  
"Hello again."  
"H-hi."  
"Where are you? Is that your hand?"  
"I'm over here."  
"Okay. I don't want to touch you inappropriately."  
"It's alright. This is your elbow?"  
"Yeah."  
"Okay. Gosh, your hands are cold."  
"I think I have bad circulation or something."  
"You have very, very cold hands."  
"Sorry."  
"Don't apologise - where's your shoulder?"  
"I don't know. I can barely co-ordinate my limbs at the best of times, let alone in bed in the dark."  
"Awh."  
"What was that for?"  
"Nothing. Nothing. There, is that comfortable?"  
"Sort of. Honestly, if it's this awkward then why does _anybody_ sleep with their partner?"  
"Well, I think most couples have more practice than we do."  
"Yes. My experience extends about as far as the polar bear I used to cuddle when I was little."  
"You had a polar bear?"  
"A toy one. Fluffy. About the same size as you. Isn't my arm digging into you like that?"  
"Not really. And wow, I wish I had a giant polar bear toy."  
"I think I still have him somewhere."  
"Oh, that's so sweet."  
"His face was a bit wonky, actually."  
"I meant- oh, never mind."  
"Kay."  
"Good night."  
"Good night."  
"... This feels really awkward."  
"... Yeah. But kinda nice, too."  
"Y-yeah..."  
"Good night. Again."  
"Yeah, good night."


	7. 6 Modest Meets Tentative

Vexen prised his eyes open the next morning to find that the two of them had shifted in the night and now Naminé was curled up rather awkwardly _underneath_ him, goodness knew how that had happened, and Vexen made an absent hypothesis that perhaps married couples didn't really sleep in each other's arms at all, because it was in reality rather difficult. But, having said, Naminé's cuddly warmth was a rather nice one, and there was something comforting about falling asleep with someone and waking up to find them still there.  
Careful not to tread on or elbow any part of the girl, Vexen crawled out of bed and drew the curtains on a rather unromantically dank day. But it was brighter than it had been over the past few days, and Vexen was sure that that was an omen of sorts. Looking over at Naminé, he realised that somebody cared, and he still had a home no matter how shaky it was, and it couldn't possibly be beyond him to find another job. So he'd had a bad temper, well, that was nothing he couldn't fix with a bit of good will.  
He wondered also if women were some kind of drug for men, because he felt a lot better for himself this morning. And looking at Naminé, he thought it might be rather nice for her to wake up to somebody, too, so he plucked a half-finished book from the shelf and ever-so-carefully climbed back into bed, and propping Naminé's sleeping body onto his chest he began to read.  
Half an hour later, she hiccuped and stirred to life, yawning and stretching as she rolled from Vexen's body. In the sunlight, Vexen thought she looked really quite beautiful, even if he'd never realised that her mouth could be quite so wide, and her hair was sticking up in interesting directions from sleeping oddly.  
"G'morning."  
"Morning."  
Vexen felt compelled to reach up and flatten Naminé's hair out, and she laughed at him and leaned over to do the same.  
"You feel a bit better this morning?" She asked as she straightened her pyjamas out and climbed over Vexen and out of bed. He nodded.  
"Much. Thank you."  
"You want me to make you a coffee?"  
"Mm. That would be nice."  
Naminé smiled, and Vexen really did think that it was a wonderful smile.  
"See you in the kitchen, then."  
It wasn't until she was gone that he steeled himself, reminded his hopeful mind that she was only nineteen so no, no way was she available, and set about his normal daily routine of getting washed and dressed before breakfast. He had no work, he realised as he was reaching for a suit in the wardrobe. So instead he picked out a little-used pair of jeans and a plain white t shirt, and pulled those on over his lanky body. Just as the warm, strong aroma of coffee was wafting up the stairs, he padded down to the kitchen.  
"Hello again."  
"Hey."  
Naminé passed him a slice of toast, already buttered, and a mug of coffee.  
"There's marmalade somewhere."  
Vexen knew where, and plucked it out, wiping off the knife with the crust of the toast before he spread on a good amount of the sharp orange spread.  
"Thank you."  
Naminé had strawberry jam, which was so sickly sweet that Vexen could smell it, and she nodded in his direction as she began to eat, leaning over the peninsular unit so that she could draw and eat simultaneously.  
"So what are you going to do today?" She asked after a while, licking jam from her fingers. Vexen shrugged, reaching for yesterday's paper.  
"I don't know. Clear up all my papers and drop them off at work. Maybe dig out my CV and write it up again. Tomorrow I'll go to the job seeking centre, see if there's anything available."  
Naminé pulled a face.  
"Anything that _isn't_ work related?"  
"I haven't _got_ anything to do that isn't work related," Vexen replied sourly.  
"But can't you take a day off? The two of us should go out somewhere."  
Vexen shook his head, folding the paper up again and sliding it away over the table.  
"I can't afford to do that. I still need to pay Marluxia back for the roof, not to mention groceries and this months' rent."  
"Haven't you got any savings?" Naminé asked incredulously. Vexen sighed as he drained the last of the coffee.  
"Everything's just gone to paying back my student loans," He explained. "I've only just finished paying that off, and I was never really paid enough to have extra at the end of the month anyway."  
Naminé didn't really know what to say to that, feeling bad for forcing Vexen to pay for the repairs to the roof just because they happened to be over his room. Lost in her own thoughts, it took a moment to notice that Vexen was still speaking.  
"I was going to use this month's pay to pay back Marluxia, but I never got it. Hopefully he won't mind until I get a new job that it won't be paid back."  
"It wasn't that much," Naminé said reproachfully. "Perhaps he'll let you off."  
"It was six hundred and forty pounds," Vexen huffed. "That's a lot of money. Think how many months I could last on six hundred and forty pounds."  
He sighed again, the warm feeling of the morning slowly dissipating in the cold hard truth. He glanced up momentarily at Naminé, who was looking guilty.  
"What?"  
She shuffled a little.  
"Well, me and Larxene only made you pay 'cus we thought you'd have enough money for it. She said that if you had a degree then you had to be better paid than her. Now it doesn't seem fair any more."  
Vexen resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead chose to redirect his gaze to the decrepit garden.  
"I suppose that for now it'll just have to rest on Marluxia."  
"Speak of the devil."  
"What?"  
Marluxia, in the last thirty seconds, had breezed into the doorway, very nearly naked again, and Vexen blanched at the sight and the memories and quickly looked away.  
"You were talking about me? I'm flattered."  
"Not specifically," Naminé replied, blushing heavily as Marluxia swept over to give her a kiss. Vexen felt jealousy bubble up inside him. Damn it, he'd felt so awkward with Naminé but last night they'd actually shared something, and Marluxia had no right to go around snogging her like she was some kind of free toy for him to play with and share around. "It's just that Vexen's got no-"  
"I can pay it back," Vexen instantly snapped, glaring at his empty breakfast plate so he wouldn't have to look at Marluxia fondling Naminé.  
"This is the roof?" Marluxia guessed easily, dragging Naminé over to the fridge just so that he could pull out the milk carton and drink straight from it. Vexen made a mental note not to use the communal milk, ever again.  
"Yeah. We were just talking about how it might end up costing even more in the long run, weren't we?"  
Naminé frowned for a moment, began to mouth "We were?" but thankfully caught on and nodded vehemently to compensate.  
"Yeah. In case the rest collapses."  
Marluxia didn't seem concerned by this in the slightest.  
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Vexen, why aren't you at work?"  
"I feel sick again," Vexen lied, standing abruptly and carrying his cup and plate over to the sink. "I'll wash those up later."  
He left, unable to stand Marluxia's company and Naminé's starstruck reactions to everything he did for a second longer. To make his morning even worse, he even met Larxene on the way to his room, who laughed in his face the moment she saw him.  
"How do you feel," She cooed, "Making little girls cry? What weird science did you do on Naminé, making her obsess over you like that?"  
Vexen had scowled at her, and didn't reply. She'd knocked him against the wall with a sharp elbow, still laughing.  
"And I don't remember hearing her go to her own room after you got back, either. I hope you're not trying to seduce her."  
"Would I," Vexen retorted dully.  
"No, you wouldn't," Larxene giggled as she made her way downstairs. "Because that bitch is mine."  
"Tell that to Marluxia." Vexen snapped back, recalling how the man was so disgustingly flirtatious with a girl so young.  
"Oh, he's harmless," Larxene replied. "Just a big puppy, really. Even Naminé could push him off if he tried to hump her."  
Vexen felt disinclined to say that, actually, Marluxia was incredibly strong, and if he "tried to hump" Naminé, she wouldn't stand a cat's chance in Hell.

* * *

Vexen sulked in his bedroom for the best part of an hour until the most of the coming and going in the house was over. He heard voices, he heard the door going, he heard footsteps running up and down the hall. When most things had settled down, he dared to step outside looking for Naminé. Hopefully she'd still be open on the offer of going out somewhere; whatever he said, Vexen really wasn't looking forward to having to clear up the mess that had been left by his job. He knocked on the door, but there was no reply.  
"Naminé?"  
The kitchen and lounge was empty, too.  
"Naminé?"  
"She's out."  
Looking around the kitchen, Vexen turned sharply to face Larxene in the doorway, looking irritated, which was a bad sign. When Larxene was in a good mood, she tended to be violent and callous. When she was in a bad mood, she was even worse.  
"Oh. Okay."  
"What did you want her for?"  
"I just wanted to ask her about the roof," Vexen quickly lied. "Where is she?"  
"She's gone out with Marluxia," Larxene said sourly. Vexen felt his heart sink.  
"Ah. Fair enough, I suppose."  
Larxene gave him a not entirely disbelieving look and deftly changed the subject.  
"Why aren't you at work?"  
Vexen set himself up for the fall. Larxene would undoubtedly find out eventually, and there would be no point shirking from the truth.  
"I lost my job."  
The second time, it came out a little easier, and although the tightness in his gut was still lingering it seemed to have loosened a little. The past was the past, wasn't that right? There was nothing that Vexen could do now, just try his hardest to avoid a repeat in the future.  
Larxene laughed.  
"Hah. Tough luck."  
She stretched out on the counter, her scowl lightening a little. She was dressed in a tank top today, despite the cold weather, and no bra. She didn't really have enough chest to warrant wearing one, Vexen mused to himself. Marluxia, with one of those sculpted physiques one would expect to find in a porn magazine, had more of a chest than she did.  
"You paid back Marluxia yet?"  
"No. I have no money. That does tend to come with having no job."  
"I'd've thought a Scrooge like you would have a coupla dozen grand sitting in the bank, at least."  
"I'm not a Scrooge," Vexen huffed, half wishing that he was because that would imply he was actually sitting on some hidden fortune. "I can't actually afford to live any more flamboyantly than this."  
Larxene gave what served as his casual clothes an unimpressed one over.  
"Ouch. Even _I_ have more money than _that_."  
"Are you done insulting me now?"  
"Never, Vexen. You're prime meat for teasing. Although you've been significantly less indignant since Marluxia arrived. He's been teaching you etiquette, has he?"  
Vexen sighed, finding the fridge and sighing as he saw that was nothing left in "his" box. Well, he had a few hundred more pounds left in his account. It'd have to do.  
"As if he has any to speak of himself."  
"He's more of a gentleman than you are," Larxene scoffed. Vexen summoned up a disdainful glare.  
"What gentleman would screw anybody who was blonde, snog innocent young girls and fuck a certain woman senseless against the kitchen counter on a weekly basis?"  
Larxene stared blankly at him for a moment, then actually had the audacity to laugh.  
"One who's got more going for him than _you_."  
For once, Vexen refused to back down or resort to storming out of the argument. He was fed up of people fucking him over, both figuratively and literally.  
"Just because he _can_ have sex with anybody he likes doesn't mean he _should_."  
"You're just jealous."  
"Of him?" Vexen retorted. "Why would I be jealous of his shallow beauty? You give me one person who would actually love Marluxia for who he is, Larxene. Nobody wants him except for sex."  
"Naminé damn near loves him," Larxene said, and there was something rather dark in her tone of voice, Vexen noted and could not explain.  
"Naminé would love anybody," He replied. "Hell, Naminé's kind to _me_. That has to tell you something about her definition of love."  
It was with some small inwards satisfaction that Vexen saw Larxene actually back down, glancing at the floor before making for the corridor.  
"Yeah, right. I wish."  
He didn't understand that, either, but it didn't really occur to him to ask. He spent the day sorting out work things after all, and after parcelling up all his forms and reports he took them down to the post office and sent them off, then had a look in the job centre for any positions open requiring a degree in environmental sciences. There were three, all several towns away. He wrote out his CV for the first time in years, stumbling over writing the qualities he supposedly possessed to make him suitable for a job. Well, he couldn't exactly say that he was a good person to work with after the last disaster, could he? So he wrote "independent and hard worker willing to put in extra hours to finish a job" and left it at that. After sending off his applications, he trudged home again to find Marluxia and Larxene furiously making out in the front room. Vile. He idly knocked on Naminé's door in the hopes that maybe she'd be in and have a moment to talk to him. He didn't really know why, he just supposed that he wanted a little of the human kindness that Naminé was always willing to offer.  
"Yeah?"  
Vexen hesitantly pushed open the door. He couldn't remember seeing Naminé's room before - he'd always left the two girls to it and kept himself to himself before - and it struck him how pretty it was. It must have been the smallest room in the house, barely space for the bed and desk that inhabited it, but Naminé really had made it her own, tacking drawing after drawing onto the wall and even painting over the wardrobe in one corner to make a rather pretty mural of sorts. The other walls were pink, which Vexen didn't really approve of owing to the horrible man that he all too automatically associated pink with, but the carpet was fluffy and everything inside was sort of innocent, so he forgave the walls and tiptoed inside.  
"Hey. You're not busy, are you?"  
"Oh, hullo, Vexen. Not really, just finishing the last of my sketchbook."  
Vexen lingered in the doorway, feeling awkward.  
"So you went out with Marluxia today."  
"Yeah," Naminé said, smiling a little. "We went to the aquarium in the next town over. It was great fun."  
Vexen nodded, trying not to sound too disappointed.  
"Good."  
Naminé suddenly seemed to realise that she'd accidentally stood Vexen up, and gave him an apologetic look.  
"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have invited you, shouldn't I? I thought you'd be busy."  
Vexen shook it off.  
"It's fine. I don't think Marluxia would appreciate me interrupting you two anyway." He said. More like he'd actually be physically sick to see Marluxia flirting with Naminé, but she didn't need to know that.  
"I'm sure he wouldn't mind," Naminé laughed, gesturing for Vexen to sit on her bed. He perched on the very edge, all too out of place in amongst all the pretty paintings, elegant trinkets on shelves, and pink. "We're just friends. Maybe the three of us can go out tomorrow?"  
Vexen was quick to shake his head.  
"Oh, no. Marluxia doesn't really like me."  
Naminé frowned, but it wasn't one of anger, just a sad sort of disappointment like it was a terrible shame that anybody had to dislike anybody else.  
"Why not?"  
Aside from the obvious, Vexen thought dully, and racked his mind for some specific lie.  
"Well, I think he sort of thinks I'm beneath him."  
The irony of that statement was sort of painful as it slipped past Vexen's mouth, and thank God Naminé didn't know how damn true it was.  
"Why don't you give him a chance?" Naminé asked with a sigh. "Really, Vexen, if you think everybody's out to get you then no wonder you don't- well, you know."  
"Yeah," Vexen said heavily. "I know."  
"Sorry."  
"It's fine."  
"You get much done today?"  
"I wrapped everything from my last job up, and sent off three more applications," Vexen said. He didn't think that Naminé would care to know that if he got any of those jobs, he'd have to move elsewhere.  
"And what about lunch? Did you eat out, or in?"  
Why Naminé cared, Vexen didn't know. But he shook his head anyway.  
"I didn't eat lunch."  
"Why not?"  
"I never eat lunch. And anyway, I had breakfast."  
"No wonder you're so thin!" Naminé exclaimed. "If you don't even eat anything."  
"I do eat," Vexen huffed, looking down at himself - well, he was unnaturally thin, but that was just the way he was. High metabolism, or whatever. "Most days."  
"_Most_," Naminé repeated, and she didn't seem impressed. "Vexen, you can't just only eat most days, you have to eat every day. Three meals. Honestly."  
"Most of the time I just forget," Vexen offered as he tried to change the subject. Eventually all he could think of was to just run away. "Anyway, I should be going."  
"It's okay," Naminé said, "You can stay here if you like. Anyway, your room's freezing now the ceiling's ruined."  
Vexen had to admit that Naminé's room was indeed much warmer than his, and sat back down on the bed. Eventually Naminé drew one last line and came to sit with him, leaning her back against his shoulder.  
"You okay?"  
Vexen found himself looking at his hands.  
"Not really."  
Naminé pulled her petite body - like _she_ could complain about Vexen being underweight - onto his lap and cuddled him tightly.  
"It's okay," She whispered. "You'll be fine."  
Vexen felt the familiar lump rise to his throat.  
"Maybe."  
"I'm thinking about getting a job," Naminé said suddenly. "There's a spot open at this restaurant nearby, and I would work there as a waitress in the evenings. What do you think?"  
Vexen nodded absently as his hands found Naminé's back and very, very shyly began to stroke it. Beneath her jumper, her skin felt smooth, with minute bumps were each section of her vertebral column was, and definite curves for her shoulder blades.  
"I think you'd make a good waitress."  
Naminé laughed a little, and squeezed Vexen's narrow chest more tightly.  
"Thanks. The pay's not so good, but it's something, right? Maybe I can pay off the roof instead."  
"No, I said I'd deal with that," Vexen replied. He couldn't just push the fees onto Naminé; that wouldn't be any more fair than his having to do so. "As soon as I get a new job I can pay back Marluxia. You deserve to keep the money you earn."  
"Well, so do you," Naminé said reproachfully. Vexen shrugged.  
"I have a little bit in the bank. I'll survive."  
Naminé sighed a little and shifted against Vexen's body, hands splayed out on his back. It felt nice having her in his arms like this. A surreal, fantasy kind of nice, where if Vexen closed his eyes he could pretend that she was his girlfriend, and they were happy and they'd always be happy.  
"Sometimes," Naminé eventually said into the empty, optimistic silence, "I think that this is all stupid and Larxene and I ought to just give up."  
"What?" Vexen said eloquently, cracking one eye open.  
"I mean, our dream. Me getting a degree in art, us doing up this place so it was all nice. Who were we kidding? We're both broke and the house is falling apart. I ought to just quit college and get a job. We should live somewhere cheaper."  
Vexen thought about this for a while, thought about leaving this ruined house to the bulldozers and building contractors. Where would Larxene and Naminé go? Where would _he_ go?  
"Once you give in you can't change your mind," He said at length. "I ought to know that better than anyone."  
"Why's that?"  
"I had a dream too," Vexen said slowly. "But I gave up, and now it's impossible."  
Naminé tucked her head beneath Vexen's chin until she could feel his heartbeat through his tight ribcage.  
"What was it?"  
Vexen laughed a little under his breath.  
"It wasn't much, really. I wanted to be a climate research scientist. I wanted to study ice caps, visit the Arctic... That was why I did environmental sciences at University. I wanted to get a doctorate, but I ran out of money. So I gave up. Now I know that I should have just taken on more part time jobs, even if I had a whole lot of debt to pay off. If I got to do what I wanted to, I'd still be happier than I am now."  
"Can't you do an evening class or something?" Naminé asked after a while. It didn't seem like "not much" to her; she could really imagine Vexen being one of those scientists surveying whatever it was that they did in those facilities in harsh weather conditions. But Vexen shook his head.  
"I don't have the money. I've just got to face it; it's over now. I'm stuck with this now."  
"You're only thirty... something," Naminé said reproachfully. Vexen's correction was automatic, and disillusioned.  
"Twenty-nine."  
Naminé didn't want to say that well, that was _nearly_ thirty, so she stayed silent for a moment.  
"Things'll get better eventually."  
Vexen wriggled a little under her, and hesitantly buried his nose in Naminé's hair. She felt his breaths on the top of her head, slow and warm, and it was sort of comforting to be so close to somebody again. Naminé had been single for a while now; her last romance, with a boy named Roxas, hadn't ended well, and she suddenly realised that she missed cuddling up in another's arms, even when there was nothing to say. Even if it was Vexen, who was so thin and bony he ought to have been uncomfortable - but he held her with such studious care as though if he were to place one hand wrong on her body she'd break, and it was sort of nice.  
When he next spoke, it was muffled and diffident.  
"Do you think I should cut my hair?"  
Naminé pulled back and studied Vexen's long hair. It didn't seem like it had seen a hairdresser for years, simply dissipating into nothing halfway down his back where the hair couldn't grow any longer.  
"Well, maybe you could do with neatening it up..."  
"I don't mean a trim," Vexen said. "I mean off."  
"Off?" Naminé questioned, trying to imagine that - it was hard. "Like... _off_ off?"  
"Yeah." Vexen said, nodding. "I mean, it looks stupid, doesn't it? This isn't the seventies. I should just cut it all off."  
"I don't think it looks stupid," Naminé said reproachfully. "It suits you."  
Ever since Naminé had first met Vexen, a few years ago if that, he'd had hair longer than any girl she knew. She remembered that first night well, Larxene suddenly turning up at the door after work with a haggard man trailing after her, looking lost and confused and miserable, and ushering him in.  
"He'll be staying with us from now on," She'd said, and the man had waved a vague hand in Naminé's direction. He was soaked by rain, with nothing more than a small suitcase and an equally sodden cardboard box for his belongings. Initially, Naminé had been suspicious of a much older man living in the household, but Vexen had turned out to be harmless if a little eccentric, and slowly he'd faded into the furniture and living with him was like he was never there at all. He was often up and out before Naminé even woke, and he didn't ever join the girls for meals, spending most of his time at home in his room. Naminé had asked Larxene where she'd found him, once or twice, but it was nothing more than a shrug and a "You know. Around." and Naminé was none the wiser.  
"Where did you come from, anyway?"  
"Huh? What do you mean?"  
"I mean, before you lived with us."  
Vexen waved his hand non-committally in the air.  
"Here and there."  
"Here and there?"  
Under further questioning, Vexen coughed uncomfortably.  
"Mostly under bus stops."  
"... Oh."  
"I met Larxene at work. When she found out I was homeless, she offered me three months for free," Vexen eventually admitted. "So I was going to stay for the first three months and then just leave, but I had a bit more money after that so I decided to stay. And... having your own bed is a luxury you soon grow attached to."  
Naminé pulled Vexen into a hug again. The memory seemed painful to recall, and vaguely she wondered if there was anything in Vexen's miserable little existence that was mildly positive. He didn't seem to think so.  
"Didn't your parents help you out?" She asked gently after a while; she'd never enquired about Vexen's family before - he never seemed to have any, and goodness knew what he did at times like Christmas when Larxene and Naminé's relatives all got together elsewhere for a party.  
"They didn't approve of my going to University," Vexen muttered. "They told me that it was a waste of time and money and I should have quit school at sixteen to help bring money into the house. They didn't even want me to do A Levels. They never had much time for education."  
"Oh."  
"I... I haven't really talked to them since then."  
Naminé wanted to say _poor thing_, but she doubted that Vexen would approve. She didn't know what she'd do without her family - she was always looking for emotional if not financial support from her parents - and to just not have any seemed awful.  
"I should have listened to them," Vexen was saying. "It was a stupid idea to do that degree. I couldn't afford it then and I can't justify it now."  
"But wasn't it your dream?" Naminé insisted. "Wasn't it what you always wanted to do? With your polar bear toy and everything?"  
"I was young," Vexen said dismissively.  
"You were young and you wanted to be a climate research scientist."  
"I... I was an odd child."  
Naminé laughed a little.  
"You can say that again. Most kids want to be firemen, or rock stars, or hair dressers. You wanted to be a climate research scientist. That's sort of cute."  
"I also wanted to be a polar bear for a while," Vexen thoughtfully replied. "But then I realised that that would be rather difficult."  
"Awh..."  
For a few moments they both thought about this. Naminé, secretly, thought that Vexen would make a better penguin. Then she realised that she was being dislodged.  
"I've still got him," Vexen said, sliding out from underneath the teenage girl. "The polar bear. Somewhere. I'll go find him."  
He disappeared, leaving Naminé sitting in the warm patch left behind by his bottom, and thinking. What was so terrible about Vexen, anyway? He was a little odd, but to be fair there were a lot of rather odd people that Naminé knew, so why was Vexen's particular brand of strange so bad? Although, having said, he had changed a lot recently. He'd been a lot more reserved since Marluxia had arrived; before his demeanour had been snappy and irritable - now he just seemed sort of... broken. Now when Larxene poked fun at him, he'd just shuffle uncomfortably rather than fly off the handle, and of course Naminé had witnessed first hand Vexen's utter disillusionment of his own life. And the curious thing was that all of this seemed to have started when _Marluxia_ had arrived.  
Before she could ponder consequence or reason, a gargantuan something, white and fluffy, appeared in the door. Behind it staggered Vexen, peering around the massive thing and finally steering it onto Naminé's bed and dumping it down.  
"There."  
A polar bear it definitely was, though by few standards could it be called realistic. It had stumpy legs, matted, threadbare fur from sheer age and a lot of love, and a lopsided grin that, whatever Vexen said, was really rather adorable.  
"Oh." Naminé said.  
"He's called Snjór," Vexen explained. "It means _snow_ in Icelandic. And also because it sounds like _snore_, and he's the lazy sort of type."  
Naminé wrapped her arms around Snjór the toy polar bear, and chuckled.  
"He's so cute."  
"You can have him if you like," Vexen said, and it might have just been the light but to Naminé he looked like he was blushing, just a little. "I think I'm a bit old to have toys now."  
"You're never too old to have toys," She retorted, gesturing for him to come join her on the bed. "How long have you had him?"  
Vexen affectionately stroked the polar bear's nose.  
"Since I was six. He moved around a lot while I wasn't living anywhere, but I got him back in the end." He explained. Then he let out a little sigh, burying his face in the old fur. "He's been my best friend for a long time. That's sort of sad, isn't it?"

Naminé had a sudden idea, and plucked up a laugh.  
"Hey, you think that's sad? My best friend is _Larxene_. You don't get much more sad than that."  
She even made Vexen chuckle a little, and considered this an achievement.  
"Anyway, you should keep Snjór. He's yours." She insisted. Vexen shook his head, making the polar bear wiggle.  
"You'd keep better care of him anyway. Your room would be a more comfortable habitat for him."  
"But your room's colder," Naminé persisted with a giggle, because they were talking about a toy polar bear, a nineteen-year-old and a twenty-nine-year-old, and a _toy polar bear_. "Wouldn't he prefer the cold?"  
"But he's old," Vexen mumbled through the fluff. "He needs a lot of looking after these days. Go on, have him."  
Naminé gave in and carefully tucked Snjór up in her bed.  
"Thank you."  
"It's no problem," Vexen said quietly, then swallowed. "Maybe... maybe you'll look at him one day and remember me."  
"But I remember you every day when I see you," Naminé said with the slightest of frowns.  
"I mean after I'm gone."  
Naminé suddenly realised that she'd always assumed that Vexen would just be there, forever, just another part of the slowly deteriorating house.  
"Gone...? You mean-?"  
"I've applied for a few job interviews," Vexen whispered, posture awkward once more on the very edge of the bed. "They're all several towns over. So if I get one of them, then I'll be moving away. I probably won't see any of you again."  
"But-" Naminé began, and couldn't think of anything to argue.  
"It's not like anyone's going to miss me," Vexen said dismissively, hauling himself to his feet. "I'd better start packing. If I don't get a job soon I won't be able to pay the rent anyway."  
He was halfway to the door when Naminé scrambled of her own accord across the bed and found his arm.  
"Hey..."  
"What?"  
"Why... why don't you stay here tonight? It'll be warmer, and... the company is sort of nice. And tomorrow we can go out somewhere. Just the two of us."

* * *

Naminé found Larxene lounging with her feet on the kitchen table the next morning when she tiptoed downstairs to make a packed lunch for herself and Vexen. The two of them had talked last night and decided that since they didn't have any money, they'd just go out to a nearby nature reserve with whatever petrol was left in the car and walk from there until they both got tired. The weather forecast hadn't been brilliant but - as Vexen had sardonically pointed out - when was anything ever brilliant?  
Naminé felt terribly sorry for the poor man, and an incredible desire to cheer him up.  
But Larxene was lounging with her feet on the table and Naminé sighed to herself as she leaned down and plucked them up, swivelling her best friend in her chair and setting her feet carefully down on the floor.  
"Good morning to you too."  
Naminé laughed a little.  
"Morning. You're up early."  
Larxene shrugged, hauling herself to her feet and stretching until Naminé realised that she was staring and quickly glanced away.  
"Yeah, well, Marluxia kicked me out of the bedroom so I figured I should get up."  
Naminé sighed to herself as she pulled the bread from the shelf above the fridge, and pulled away four neat slices. Butter, cheese, ham and lettuce - neither sandwich looked particularly fantastic but it was better, Naminé supposed, than nothing.  
"'S a lot for just you," Larxene, who'd stood a moment ago, idly commented.  
"One of them's for Vexen," Naminé promptly replied.  
"Vexen?" Larxene asked incredulously. "What are you making Vexen sandwiches for? Jesus Christ, Naminé, he really _has_ tried to seduce you."  
Naminé didn't know why she was blushing - perhaps because, if anything, it was the other way around - but she quickly shook it from her head.  
"Not at all," She replied primly. "We're just going to go walking out on the reserves today, that's all."  
Larxene glanced out at the misty drizzle outside, and didn't seem convinced in the slightest.  
"... Why?"  
"Why not?" Naminé asked, beginning to bristle a little. Really, was it such a crime to be friends with Vexen? God knew he needed one. "Look, I know you don't like Vexen but I really don't think it's fair to-"  
"Marluxia's probably free, you know," Larxene interrupted, snappishly. "Why don't you go out with him? You could go somewhere warm. Movies, or an art gallery, or something."  
"Because I want to go out with _Vexen_!" Naminé insisted, and there suddenly was the blush on her cheeks again, redder than beetroot, and she remembered herself in the small, ramshackle kitchen and began to shuffle her feet. "As friends. You know, for the company."  
Larxene had raised her eyebrows a little.  
"Which explains the fact that you slept in his bed the night before last, and he slept in yours last night, how?"  
"He just needs a friend," Naminé persisted as Larxene began to storm out of the kitchen. "Look, there's nothing between us like that if that's what you're asking. And you'll always be my best friend. As for Marluxia, well, he's got plenty of people fawning over him every hour of every day so I don't see why spending some time with Vexen is really such a burden on _either_ of you. I know he's not exactly sociable, but that's absolutely no excuse for being so immature and vindictive."  
Larxene either didn't hear or didn't deign to reply, because moments later she was gone. Naminé, embarrassed by her outburst, slowly tiptoed over to a chair and sat down.  
"You... you big _meanie_."  
But Larxene _had_ been acting up, ever since Marluxia had moved in. Just like Vexen. Things had changed with the introduction of the pink-haired man to this household in ways that Naminé could not understand. Before, it was Larxene and Naminé, together, because Vexen just did his own thing all the time, only leaving his room to argue and make cups of coffee. Now Larxene spent most of her spare time with Marluxia and Vexen wandered around in stricken silence, his movements jerky and his expression haunted. And, Naminé was beginning to notice, he was absolutely _terrified_ of Marluxia. The man only needed to so much as walk into the room and Vexen would pale and stiffen, as though Marluxia could somehow suck the life out of him and leave nothing but an empty corpse behind. But since that sort of thing was the substance only of late-night horror movies, Naminé instead put it down to the fact that Vexen already looked somewhat... dead, even without external influences.  
Eventually, Naminé was forced to admit that there wasn't anything that she could do because Marluxia was here to stay, Larxene would always be capricious in nature and Vexen really, really needed a friend.  
Speak of the devil, here he was hanging uncertainly around in the doorway. He looked lost in his own home - but did he really have one here, or was this just a very long three months' stay?  
"Hey."  
"Morning. How are you feeling?"  
Vexen shrugged, slinking in. He stuck to the walls, Naminé noticed. Another sign of the confidence he'd lost.  
"Okay, I suppose."  
She gave him a hug and instantly he seemed to relax like some unspoken question had been answered.  
"I made us sandwiches."  
"Oh. That was generous of you."  
When Larxene hugged Naminé, she had a tendency to rest her chin on the shorter girl's head; but Vexen was too tall even for that. He hadn't seemed it for a long time, but he was a big person, tall and broad shouldered with wide hips, large hands and large feet. Every dimension of him just seemed stretched. He simply had no fat or muscle, which unlike the shorter, stockier Marluxia made him a lanky, elongated and rather awkward skeleton of a man. Naminé wondered if anybody had so thoughtfully considered Vexen's physique. She sort of doubted it. Everyone looked at people like Marluxia - Naminé herself was guilty of that. Vexens, reclusive and academic, tended to be overlooked. This was all very well when they _wanted_ to be left alone but when, like Vexen, they suddenly found themselves in wanting of company, problems occurred.  
Like cuddling in the kitchen. It was all very well and nice - even if Vexen was somewhat bony - but if Marluxia or Larxene were to come in, there'd probably be hell. So she reluctantly prised herself away and led Vexen to a cup of coffee.  
Twenty minutes later, they'd packed everything up and bundled themselves into the car.  
"I'm going to have to give this back soon," Vexen said as he followed a complicated-looking procedure to actually get the thing to start.  
"Huh? Back to who?"  
"It's a company car," Vexen said as he reversed into the empty road. "Along with my company laptop and company phone..."  
"You'll be fine," Naminé promised. "When you get a new job you can have a new company car and laptop and phone."  
Vexen hummed a little to himself in vague agreement, and as they rolled into a little gravely car park at the edge of the reserve, he was almost, very nearly almost, smiling. The drizzle has also turned into a downpour, but the two of them just shrugged on their heavy duty cagoules and set off into the driving rain.


	8. 7 In a Place with No Reason

"Where's Vexen?"  
Larxene was sulking in front of the TV and had been for some time. She was, as it were, pissed. Partly at the world at large but mostly towards Vexen. Of all the treacherous things, that man had the audacity to-  
"He's out with Naminé."  
There was such malice in her words that even Marluxia seemed a little intimidated.  
"Oh? Where?"  
"Who cares," Larxene said sourly. "The point is they're going out and he's ten bloody years older than her, which is just disgusting. Not to mention the fact that he's _Vexen_."  
Marluxia shrugged.  
"My parents were a decade apart," He said.  
"Was your mother nineteen?" Larxene shot back. She elicited a laugh from Marluxia, who conquered the floor in two easy strides and lounged elegantly on the half of the sofa that wasn't already claimed by Larxene's sprawling mass.  
"At some point, I suppose she must have been."  
In no mood for jokes, Larxene threw Marluxia a murderous glare.  
"You know what I _mean_."  
Marluxia seemed somehow to sense her displeasure and settled into one of his more fitting personalities.  
"If she matters that much to you, take her back."  
Larxene ignored this too personal suggestion completely, her face contorting instead into an irritable scowl.  
"But _Vexen_."  
"He's rather tentatively gorgeous," Marluxia commented offhandedly. Larxene appeared to consider this a joke, and laughed cynically.  
"You can't actually think that."  
"I do," Marluxia promised earnestly. "He has an unorthodox beauty about him."  
"He's foul," Larxene spat. "You can't go a day without receiving the brunt of another one of his temper tantrums, and he thinks he's so much _better_ than everyone else. It's sickening."  
"Marluxia appeared to consider this before speaking.  
"It's nothing a little persuasion can't fix."  
Larxene looked at Marluxia incredulously.  
"I really don't like your tone of voice."  
"You really are as oblivious as Naminé says, then," Marluxia laughed, stretching until his back clicked and somehow managing to make even that look graceful. "When was the last time Vexen shouted at you?"  
Larxene opened her mouth to reply and found that, embarrassingly, the most recent time she could recall was back when Marluxia had just moved in - and even then...  
"Well, he's been a bit quieter recently, I'll admit."  
"And why do you think that is?"  
There was a slight pause.  
"Oh God. You _didn't_."  
Marluxia simply smiled a knowing smile.  
"It took an amount of convincing..."  
Larxene spluttered a little.  
"But Vexen's straighter than a _ruler_! He'd never agree to- he _did_ agree, right?"  
Marluxia laughed again as he none-too-subtly tugged Larxene onto his lap for kiss and tell.  
"Of course. What do you take me for, a rapist?"  
"Sometimes the pants you manage to climb into beggars belief."  
Marluxia chuckled to himself as clothes were lost and bruising holds were found.  
"You're right, though. He really is like fucking a woman."  
"I told you. Probably wasn't even worth it."  
"Oh, no. You see, the difference is that I _like_ that kind of thing."

* * *

It was a good day. Vexen surprised himself: he'd expected to be sullenly awkward all day but he and Naminé somehow found plenty to talk about. He told her about his siblings, the brother who carried on his father's trade and the sister given a grant by the government to train at a national level in gymnastics. She revealed a little of her own secret past, one in a long line of artistic heritage and twin brothers who'd moved to Spain together last year. They talked about the weather, mainly because there was so much of it. Vexen explained all the fronts and pressure and prevailing winds and Naminé told him how to paint a cloud with just the right fluffy colours. They were a world apart but it comforted Vexen to realise that somewhere even they could find a patch of common ground.  
The rain steadily worsened over the course of the morning until the forest floor was a swamp and they were akin to drowned rats. Naminé fell down a pothole and had to be carried until they reached a comparatively sheltered thicket. The sandwiches were crushed but thankfully dry; Naminé giggled when Vexen poured water out of his boots and they both laughed when she slipped in the mud and dragged him down with her.  
When they reached the car they were both thoroughly soaked and freezing, but... it was a good day.  
It was quite a ritual, stripping down sodden clothes and boiling the kettle for hot chocolate when they finally arrived back at home. Larxene and Marluxia were nowhere to be seen, and that suited Vexen just fine. He ran a bath for Naminé, and was awfully tempted to ask if he could sit in the bathroom with her as she pruned - but that was very definitely inappropriate. So he hung up all their wet clothes to dry in the utility room instead and towelled the worst of the water from his hair until she shyly popped out onto the landing.  
"All yours."  
She looked so adorable wrapped in a towel with her hair in a messy bun, Vexen thought somewhere in the very secret part of his brain that conveniently forgot that she was too young and most certainly not available, and he was so dislikeable that even if she was, just - no. But then again, Naminé always looked adorable, and now that Vexen had noticed it once he saw it in everything she did.  
"Thanks."  
He slipped inside and to his surprise, Naminé followed him. The bathroom was like a sauna and it enveloped them both in a sleepy warmth.  
"If I..." She began, and paused momentarily, "If I go put my pyjamas on, d'you mind if I come sit with you?"  
Vexen did not mind at all and hesitantly told her so, so after she'd gone he stripped off and was safely amassed with bubbles by the time she returned.  
"We should do this again."  
"What, go walking in the pouring rain?" Vexen asked, a little surprised.  
"Yeah," Naminé said, chuckling under her breath. "It was fun."  
"More fun than going to the zoo with Marluxia?"  
Naminé considered this for quite a while, and Vexen was sure that she was torn between lying to be kind, or being honest and insulting. Obviously she'd enjoy Marluxia's company more, particularly when it didn't entail falling over in muddy fields and trying to salvage dead sandwiches from the bottom of a rucksack.  
"Just as much," She eventually said. "You two are very different and I value you both equally."  
"But he's rich and charismatic and interesting," Vexen protested before he caught himself. He was unsure as to why he couldn't just take the compliment for face value. It was like he secretly wanted her to keep arguing with his self-depreciative nature so he'd have a chance to coddle his pathetic little ego.  
"But you're thoughtful and attentive and intelligent," Naminé duly elaborated. "And anyway, you've got to be pretty impressive to be able to make getting completely soaking wet worthwhile."  
Vexen, who had not been called impressive pretty much ever, honestly didn't know what to say to that. He just wasn't used to compliments, which, he thought dully, was a rather sad state of affairs. So he blushed a little, and kept his focus on his hands.  
"You're exaggerating."  
Naminé sighed a little, tentatively brushing her fingers against Vexen's bare, slightly freckled shoulder.  
"You really don't have much self confidence, do you?"  
Vexen glanced up to find Naminé's nose a lot closer than he'd expected. They were almost touching, and in the murky heat of the bathroom, it almost seemed like she'd actually meant to be so close, and when she didn't back away Vexen fleetingly wondered of-  
"Not any more."  
"You've changed a lot," Naminé whispered, and Vexen felt fingertips rest so softly on his bare arms. He nodded distantly, the registration of every humming muscle louder than words. Where was sense and reason here with a tiny teenage girl just centimetres from his lips, eyes sliding closed, the softest of sensations and warm, fuzzy intimacy?  
Vexen's mind went blank.  
Ever since he could remember, Vexen had been thinking. His busy mind just never stopped working; if he wasn't mulling over the events of a day he was recalling snippets of knowledge or calculating random numbers just to have something to do. But now all those whirring thoughts just toppled out like sand through a sieve. It was a moment or six before even one thought tentatively crept in.  
Oh my _God_. She's _kissed_ me.  
She actually just _kissed me_.  
And then all the _or did I kiss her? Oh sweet Jesus, did I just kiss a nineteen year old girl? She can't have meant to kiss me. Nobody would want to kiss me and anyway I'm in the bath and why would she kiss me in the bath in fact why would she want to be in the bathroom with me anyway and oh my God I'm naked and she kissed me this has to be a dream there's no way that she's actually-_  
Naminé moved. Just a centimetre or so, tilting her head away from Vexen's nose and the worries tumbled away again. He frantically tried to remember - well, _learn_ - how to kiss somebody when they weren't just politely pecking his cheek or seemingly hell-bent on thrusting their tongue down his throat. He mostly failed, but Naminé didn't seem to mind terribly, and by Vexen's standards she knew what she was doing. It was still just a peck of a kiss (two kisses when they momentarily broke and returned to each other's lips) and there were no tongues or moaning, but it was a thousand times better than Larxene drunkenly dragging her nails down Vexen's chest or Marluxia invading every inch of his privacy. The other two were barely an inkling in his mind as arms were looped around flushed skin and wet handprints were left on soft fabric. When Naminé pulled away with a wet sort of pop, Vexen was still hardly thinking, which he'd have found disconcerting if the pure amazement of the kiss hadn't overridden all other emotions.  
"Sorry."  
Her shy apology snapped him from some sort of daze, and he quickly busied himself in relocating an errant duck.  
"Don't be."  
She pulled away and began to fiddle with her thumbs, still furtively watching Vexen out of the corner of her eye. Vexen wouldn't have noticed, except he was doing exactly the same thing.  
Downstairs and out of Vexen's mind, the door heralded merry yells and the occasion crash of Marluxia and Larxene's unwelcome return. The bathroom was in another universe, particularly when Naminé looked up through her hair and their eyes met and locked, lips again to follow. Even when Larxene was calling for Naminé, her fingertips stayed loyally locked with Vexen's.  
It slowly dawned on him that he was falling in love. With a nineteen year old girl. One with a very, very overprotective best friend who was knocking on doors and calling her name.  
Reluctantly, Vexen pulled away.  
"Go," He whispered, "I'll get out when the coast is clear."  
She smiled a little, nodded, and with one last little kiss was gone.  
Vexen sank down into the water and blushed until his heartbeat slowed to its usual steady pace.

* * *

Larxene had been looking for Naminé for about four minutes or so when she popped, red-faced, out of the bathroom.  
"Was just having a bath," She explained, pointing to the hastily closed door. "Vexen and I got pretty wet today. And then we fell over. Where did you go?"  
Larxene's scowl didn't lift at all.  
"Just out. Is Marluxia home?"  
"I thought he came home with you," Naminé said, dusting herself off and making for her room.  
"That's just some guy," Larxene scoffed dismissively. "Marluxia's probably off arranging a threesome somewhere. Why are you blushing so much?"  
Naminé quickly busied herself with something peripheral in her room. Larxene, if anything more displeased, stepped in and closed the door behind her.  
"Well?"  
"I- I like Vexen," Naminé blurted out. "And, well, it was all a bit sudden, but I... I kissed him a bit."  
Naminé always loathed telling Larxene about boyfriends; it was like some excruciating test that they had to go through: obtaining Larxene's approval. None of them ever had and Vexen - although he wasn't really exactly a _boyfriend_ - had the added disadvantage of Larxene already positively abhorring him. But Naminé steeled herself, because for once she had a selfless reason for not being a pushover and that was Vexen.  
"A bit." Larxene echoed sourly.  
"Yeah." Naminé said.  
"_Vexen_."  
"He's sort of sweet."  
"Sweet is the last word I'd ever think of to describe Vexen," Larxene said. "Well, except gorgeous, which Marluxia seems to think he is."  
"Marluxia thinks he's gorgeous?" Naminé questioned. With the nicest will in the world, even she wouldn't go that far. Vexen wasn't ugly, but he wasn't gorgeous.  
Larxene nodded sagely.  
"Unwaveringly."  
"Wow," Naminé said thoughtfully. "I... I'm not sure I'd go that far, but..."  
"I would not go anywhere near that world and Vexen," Larxene decided definitively. "But really? Vexen? Naminé, he's probably diseased."  
"He's less likely to be diseased than Marluxia," Naminé pointed out without thinking, then against better judgement added, "Statistically."  
"You are not going to do anything with Vexen that would give Marluxia a statistically higher chance of being diseased," Larxene declared. This was not a suggestion or a request: it was an order.  
Naminé, who had not even thought about that yet, blushed furiously and had nothing more to say.  
"And anyway, he's a bloody decade older than you. And he smells odd. Just stay away from him. I've have thought that even you would have better standards than-"  
"Don't you have a friend waiting?" Naminé interrupted. She didn't mean to snap - it just slipped out. Larxene stared.  
"He's rubbing off on you," She said as she headed for the door. "Why do you even hang around with him? He's vile."  
"He isn't!" Naminé protested. "He's just lonely, and no wonder he thinks he's awful, because you're so busy always telling him that he is!"  
"Are we talking about the same Vexen?"  
Naminé sat down heavily on the bed and pulled Snjór onto her lap.  
"No," She whispered into the matted white fluff. "I... I don't think we are."  
Larxene gave her the look of a person who didn't understand poetic metaphors, and left. Naminé waited a moment before tottering over to Vexen's room, Snjór safe in her arms.

* * *

After that, it became a sort of routine for Vexen to come creeping into Naminé's room at night and hold her tentatively close, a gesture that became less and less awkward as each of them found places to put elbows and knees where they could both be comfortable; even under the pastel pink duvet Vexen soon felt quite at home. Even if he never dared even think of the word _girlfriend_, it was still so mind-blowing to consider that Naminé might actually like to have his hands splayed on her back and her head tucked beneath his chin. It gave him a shy, shaky little confidence to see her off with a kiss the next time she left for university, or pop into her room to ask if she'd keep him company while he rebound the spines of a few of his oldest books.

Things in the second shared bed of the house were not so content. Larxene was in a foul mood and had been since Naminé came home from her day out with Vexen and decided that he wasn't the surly, self-centred jerk that Larxene knew and loathed, but some kind of hapless academic who just needed a hug. And, granted, she was willing to accept that in recent months, Vexen had become slightly less of a cantankerous old geezer, but an old geezer he still was and not the kind of person Larxene ever wanted infecting Naminé. He was supposed to be safe, someone who'd never interfere with Larxene's affairs with Naminé, and now he suddenly thought it was acceptable to go around modestly kissing Naminé's cheeks and brushing his hands across her hips when they thought that nobody was looking.  
Unfortunately, since Vexen was at best elusive and at worst impossible to find, much of Larxene's temper came crashing down to rest heavily on Marluxia's shoulders. She bit right through his skin one night, and after that they slept in their own beds.  
"Naminé!" She kept saying whenever Marluxia was idly hanging around. "I can't believe that Vexen thinks he can get away with stealing her from me like _he's_ the one she's been best friends with for oh, only sixteen bloody years."  
Marluxia had wisely appeared to listen, and refrained from offering his own opinion. But it was Vexen who truly suffered, in hundreds of petty ways that it took him quite some time to register. Namely when there were calls for potential employers asking about interviews.  
_"Vexen Carlisle? Oh, is that his name? Sorry, I'm just the hooker he hired... maybe you should call back later...?"_  
The car keys left hanging on the rack were also a perfect opportunity for vengeance: Larxene drove the battered old thing to a car park and left it there with no ticket. She 'accidentally' dropped his favourite coffee mug.  
"Whoops~"  
It was almost funny, seeing Vexen try to contain his anger. He'd blanch, fists clenching into tight knots of bones and veins. Larxene was used to screeching retorts which she could effortlessly run Vexen in circles with, but as of late he'd taken to simply keeping his gaze averted and leaving the vicinity as quickly as possible. The coward. He was boring now that all he ever did was run with his tail firmly locked between his legs.  
Naminé became more distant, too. Sometimes Larxene glimpsed her with Vexen occasionally doing things that the two girls used to do together. How was that possibly fair? Until a few weeks ago Naminé barely even talked to the reclusive man, and now they were going out for walks every weekend and even had embarked on a project to clean up the garden now the days were growing longer. Marluxia, the slimy bastard, for all his words, didn't even seem to care in the slightest that his darling Vexen was charading around with somebody else. But then again, Marluxia rarely seemed concerned about anything at all. She called him up on it, once.  
"Don't you even care about Vexen and Naminé?"  
He shrugged philosophically, perfectly poised on the kitchen chair with a glass of fruit tea in his hands. He didn't seem interested in drinking it; it simply seemed to serve as a tool with which to look more sophisticatedly relaxed.  
"If he fucks Naminé, does that mean I'm allowed to?"  
"You go anywhere near her," Larxene muttered dangerously, "And I will rip out every pink hair from your head. And possibly your body, too."  
Marluxia, unfazed, just laughed.  
"My, my. I don't remember that being a part of the deal," He said flippantly. When Larxene didn't immediately reply, he smirked and chose another question. "Why don't you ever ask her about it?"  
Larxene looked horrified.  
"She's straight! How could I ever- it'd ruin us. Things would never be the same again and I'd be all the worse for it."  
"You're sounding like the dog in the manger," Marluxia said thoughtfully.  
"Just because you're a wanton slut," Larxene scoffed. "You really don't get what it's like, every time Naminé gets herself a new boyfriend. They weren't the ones helping her out every time she argued with her parents. They didn't give up everything for her like I did. They say that they love her and they _don't. I_ do."  
Marluxia stood and poured his untouched tea meticulously down the sink.  
"Naminé," He said softly as he watched the liquid trickle away, "Is a very lucky girl indeed."  
In the two minutes it that it took Marluxia to load up the last space in the dishwasher and set it running, Larxene could think of nothing to say. What could he have meant? He made it clear that as fun as the sex was, there was no love between them and Marluxia wasn't the kind of person to conceal his emotions. He wouldn't seek Larxene's love, so why...?  
Marluxia stopped by on the way to the door with a surprisingly chaste kiss to Larxene's forehead.  
"Perhaps," He whispered, "She deserves to know just how lucky he is."  
"Don't you dare-" Larxene began, but Marluxia had slipped away. "- tell her."  
And twenty minutes later Vexen wandered in looking purposeful and Larxene let punches fly until he crumpled, whimpering, to the floor. She felt a little better for pulling him up by his ridiculously long hair and hissing threats in his ear then planting a solid foot into his stomach, but... not much.


	9. 8 Enigma

It was in a foul mood that Larxene stormed out of the house and down to the end of the half-refurbished garden. The air was cold with a dampness that soon seeped beneath her flimsy blouse but she kept on over the gate that had long since broken and into the fields beyond. Trees flanked either side of a long plain cut by the meander of a river, but it was too misty to see the view and Larxene's heart was too heavy to enjoy it.  
_Fuck._  
Fuck, this wasn't what was supposed to happen! Naminé wasn't supposed to go around falling in love with the one guy that Larxene had deemed safe for her to be around! Marluxia wasn't supposed to be going around finding loopholes in his deal with her! Vexen wasn't inexplicably supposed to have suddenly become a sensitive, precious little soul who needed cuddles and kisses just to stand on his own two feet! None of this shit was supposed to happen; it ought to have been _Larxene_ and _Naminé_ and that was _that_, no men involved and much less ageing scientists or insane blonde-fetishists.  
Larxene had always known that she couldn't protect Naminé's innocence forever - but this wasn't how it was supposed to end. Not with Vexen, that poor gullible arsehole that even Larxene wouldn't willingly fuck. Not with Marluxia's enigmatic smiles and idle threats, not with Naminé thinking she was falling in love with a man who soon wouldn't even care.  
Because, fuck it all, Larxene cared. Larxene had always cared and she always would. But Naminé was too blind, too fucking _blind_, to see as she flounced around with boyfriends and childish romances that the one person who truly, honestly, had always loved her was right in front of her very eyes every morning at breakfast.  
It was sickening to see her shyly giggle in Vexen's arms because that wasn't where she belonged, it was with _Larxene_, Larxene's sinewy limbs wrapped around her shoulders, Larxene's lips on hers, Larxene's blazing eyes that should have captured her and Larxene's blonde hair that her fingers should have been threaded into. What did Vexen know about sacrifice? How could Vexen possibly understand giving everything away for an impossible dream? He was just a man, just a chilly academic who had stolen Naminé away from under Larxene's nose and like hell was she going to let him get away with it.  
Larxene stopped at the trench running across the first field and sat aimlessly in the grass. She could be travelling the world by now. She could be dancing in Las Vegas, fucking a new beautiful man senseless every night. And here she was with a boring-as-fuck nine to five job, in a crumbling house, while Naminé played out her small dreams of doodling for a little petty cash that would never keep this hell-hole standing. It wasn't that Naminé wasn't talented, but she never thought _big_. She never wanted to be a famous artist, she never aimed for the stars - she just wanted to settle down with a nice man and live out her days in a little corner of the world, only to be forgotten the moment she died. It was pathetic and it made Larxene want to scream with frustration every time she sat back and looked at how her own life had diminished into nothing for the sake of Naminé's little fantasies.  
And the worst thing was that Larxene knew why she never took that lucrative job three towns over, why she didn't buy that gorgeous pair of jeans in the shop window when she could have afforded it and more if they moved into a smaller apartment, why she'd beaten Vexen senseless and left him whimpering with pain on the kitchen floor. It was because she loved _Naminé_. It was because every time she saw Naminé smile, she could dream that maybe one day Naminé would smile for her and her alone, because every time Naminé laughed her beautiful, innocent laugh, Larxene wanted her to laugh for her and only her. Because when Naminé was sad, it was though Larxene's whole word was crashing and burning, because when Naminé bashfully admitted that she'd kissed the new boy on the block, jealousy enveloped Larxene's whole being and drove her to do things that even her admittedly sadistic personality wouldn't even consider.  
It wasn't _fair_. It wasn't fair that Larxene loved Naminé so much and never received even the tiniest of kisses from her, and Vexen couldn't even know the feeling of love and Naminé looked at him like he was the answer to every hole in her life, like they'd always be together and always be happy, and grow old in their small world of small dreams and small consequence.  
Larxene laid back and closed her eyes to the rain splashing on her face. It was better that way. The cool water masked her tears.

* * *

It was at some point that Vexen prised his cheek from the stone tiling of the kitchen floor. His whole body stung with the dull purpling of bruises; he couldn't even see from his left eye. Larxene was tenacious; Vexen felt as though his entire life force had just been punched out of him. But worse than the physical injuries hurt the threats, the savage promises of nothing but pain if Vexen ever tried to pursue Naminé's love. Why couldn't he just be happy? Was he really such an awful person to deserve all of this? And why, as he was stumbling back to his room, did it have to be _Marluxia_ in the hallway, standing as though he'd been waiting for Vexen to crawl past as his weakest, so his hand could slide around his waist in painful, burning promise of everything that had been forced onto him, months ago, and those deep, empty blue eyes could watch him and actually ask like they'd _ever_ care;  
"Are you alright?"  
Vexen didn't reply as he furiously pulled himself away, staggered over to his door and pushed it open. He could feel Marluxia's suffocating presence follow him and he wanted to scream, scream until anybody came running and saw that everything was wrong and Vexen could pretend all he want with smiles and cuddles for innocent little Naminé, but he was still utterly _broken_.  
But his throat was dry and his lungs were empty. All he could do was hit the bed, tense with coarse fear at the pain flowering past his gaudy bruises, and cling to any fabric his sweating palms found as though if he held on long enough, the rest would just melt away.  
It was a few moments, or maybe just time trickling excruciatingly slowly, before he felt the warmth of human skin on his neck as fingers slid easily across his body. The reaction was snapshot, the way he pressed his face into the pillow choking, the howl that left his throat inhuman.  
"Oh God, _no_,"  
"I won't hurt you," Came the distant reply, somewhere in another world, and Vexen's body froze in mortification. No. Marluxia would always hurt him, inside and out, and it would leave him hurting until his body stiffened for the last time and his screaming mind finally shut down.  
"_Please_!"  
And he begged. He begged even as his back arched at deceptively gentle fingers playing like they'd heal the affliction and not worsen it. Vexen knew what was coming next. He _knew_ that Marluxia was a monster, that Marluxia never cared for anybody bar himself, that Marluxia got what he wanted and never took no for an answer.  
"Oh God, no, _please_,"  
And he must have sounded pathetic with fingers spasmodically clenching the sheets in mortal fear and voice cracking with every heavy dead weight memory.  
"Please! I can't _take_ this any more!"  
And he prayed to whoever wasn't listening that it would be over swiftly, that in the morning he could somehow face the shame enough to fake a smile at Naminé and let her touch his violated, disgusting body.  
"Oh God, please, _stop_! I'll do anything- just don't- don't-"  
Movement stopped and hands stayed splayed on Vexen's back. Suddenly hair was tickling the line of flesh above his shirt collar, and there was Marluxia's voice so soft and so silky and more cutting than any knife.  
"I'm not going to hurt you."  
"P-_please_..."  
And Vexen realised that he needed to breathe, and as much as he wished that blissful asphyxiated unconsciousness would envelope him, his body took a deep gasping breath only to release it in another painful sob.  
Marluxia took to exploring Vexen's skin with his fingers again, thumbs rubbing deep circles in the knots at Vexen's shoulders. It was horrific, the tenderness with which Marluxia violated him. The kind of horrific that made Vexen's fingers flex only to clench again, that racked his body with sobs.  
"Please, not _now_. Not tonight. Oh, God, I'll do _anything_! Just not _tonight_! _Please_!"  
And it was with a painfully chaste kiss to his tightly knotted hand that Marluxia pulled away and simply disappeared. Confused, tired, and hurting in every sense of the world, Vexen eventually forced himself to lay lax in the darkness and shiver silently until his breathing solidified. He didn't understand Marluxia's motives. He wasn't even sure that he wanted to understand.  
The other thing he didn't understand was why Naminé, a few minutes later, bustled in with a burst of light from the switch and took him in her arms.  
"Oh my goodness, are you okay?"  
Vexen just thanked the Gods that she was there as he melted into her, held her close to his aching body, and cried. She calmed him with words that were immaterial and kisses that penetrated deeper than Larxene's bruising punches or Marluxia's humiliating touch. When she gently prised herself away it was only to retrieve the first aid kit and help patch over some of the worst bruises.  
"Who did this to you?"  
Vexen could only shake his head, hands still in quivering tension as Naminé kissed each blemish before covering it away.  
"Marluxia was worried about you," She continued softly. "He wasn't sure what to do, so he came and got me. Wasn't that sweet of him?"  
Vexen closed his eyes and wished that Marluxia would make up his mind about whether he was a horrible person or not, because Vexen didn't understand people at the best of times - let alone Marluxia, none of whose actions made any sense. So he settled for a non-committal hum, and nothing more even as Naminé helped him up out of his room and into her bed where Snjór cuddled them both.  
"You know," She whispered in the darkness of the night, "I think I'll have to wrap you up in cotton wool and keep you locked up in my room so you won't get hurt."  
And as she shifted a little to wrap her arms around Vexen's body, he'd have shied away, but the energy was gone. And he wished that Naminé could save him from the pain of being _himself_, but it was a wasted request because the moment his eyes slid closed, the nightmares returned with more burning intensity than ever before.

* * *

It was deep in the night that Naminé felt her eyelids flutter open in groggy half-awakeness, with Vexen tucked against her chest with a desperate ferocity, his eyes wet even in sleep. She brushed away a loose stand of hair and leaned down to kiss his cheeks until the bitter salty taste of tears was burned onto her lips.  
Oh, Vexen. He'd almost been happy and now embedded in his skin was another reminder that somehow his whole life was falling apart. Naminé hadn't realised that Vexen had gone out; presumably he'd popped down to the shops for some groceries, and he must have been attacked on the way home. Who would do such a thing, even without knowing that the older man was teetering on the brink of depression as it was? He looked more broken than ever in the half-light of Naminé's glow in the dark ceiling of stars. His closed eyes held a haunted expression, a window to the memories hiding beneath this surface. Naminé had no doubt that there was more to Vexen's misery than he told her - but she could, for now, only trust his judgement and let him speak the truth when he was ready.  
So she tugged the duvet a little closer around the two of them, propped Vexen's sleeping body up against Snjór, and settled down to sleep. She didn't get a chance: moments later, there was the softest of knocks on the door.  
"Who's there?"  
"It's Marluxia."  
"Oh. Come in."  
In slipped the gorgeous figure of the house's only brunette, silhouetted by the hallway light. He closed the door behind him and was gone until Naminé shifted involuntarily when he sat down on the edge of the bed.  
"How is he?"  
Naminé shook her head as a smooth palm effortlessly found her cheek and gently ran itself down her skin.  
"Not so good. I thought things were getting better, but... well, things haven't been going very well for him right now. He lost his job, and-"  
"Larxene told me," Marluxia whispered. His hand had found her chin and his thumb brushed across her lips as she spoke.  
"Well, and he's applied for more but nobody called him. I think he feels like he isn't good enough for, well, _anything_ right now."  
Marluxia nodded and hummed a little in acknowledgement, but said nothing. So Naminé continued, desperate to fill the silence and somehow mask the little whimpers that Vexen would occasionally emit. No doubt if he were awake, he would find it impossibly humiliating to show such weakness in the presence of another man, even moreso one like Marluxia whose thoughts were always enigmatic.  
"He can't really afford to be unemployed right now. He was homeless before, you know, before he came here, and I think he's worried that he might have to leave again."  
"I can pay his rent," Marluxia offered. Naminé smiled a little, nodding - she and Larxene would probably have to do the accounts again, soon, and to have even a little more money off their chest would be a bonus.  
"Thanks. I'm sure he'll be grateful."  
Marluxia stood, chuckling a little as he made for the door.  
"I doubt it." He whispered, smiling as he turned back in the dusky pre-dawn light. "Perhaps it would be best if you don't tell him anything."  
Naminé opened her mouth to protest - Vexen deserved to know, and anyway it would help to improve the somewhat strained relationship that they seemed to have. Vexen seemed convinced that Marluxia was a terrible person, but he couldn't be, could he, if he'd offer to pay Vexen's rent until he got a new job? It would help Vexen to see that Marluxia was a good man, really, and that he didn't hate Vexen. But Marluxia seemed strangely insistent, so she swallowed back her argument and nodded again.  
"Okay."  
"Sleep well."  
"Thanks."  
Click, he was gone.

* * *

It was deep in the night that Larxene returned, sneezing, from the rain. Her hair, usually so springy, was plastered flat to her head, her clothes equally glued to her skin. The kitchen was the first place she headed, in search of a coffee to keep her alive until the small hours of the morning. It was already occupied. Marluxia was sitting at his place on the table, inspecting the contents of a chipped, steaming mug. At Larxene's entrance he sat up straight and nodded in acknowledgement at her.  
"I wish you were still fucking Vexen, you know," She said as she boiled the kettle. Marluxia didn't smile, simply standing and passing her his own drink - coffee, how did he know? - but his silence was questioning. "He thinks he can fuck around with Naminé. I hate him. I hate him so much. He was supposed to be safe. He was the loser that even a whore wouldn't screw. He was the reclusive moron with no friends and no life and now he's stolen Naminé away."  
Still, Marluxia said nothing. He just leaned against the counter and watched her with that unreadable expression that could have meant anything, anything at all.  
"And you just let it happen! I thought you were supposed to be Vexen's fuckbuddy, and now he bloody thinks that he's in love with Naminé. I'd kill him, he's such a sick bastard the way he looks at her, and he doesn't deserve a shred of the attention she gives her! She hardly looks at me twice any more. No, she's got to look at _his_ ugly face like anybody could love that. It makes me want to throw up."  
Marluxia smiled softly and brushed his hand so gently down Larxene's cheek, trapping his chin between his forefinger and thumb. He caught her eyes and leaned forwards for a slow, silent kiss.  
The punch sent her reeling backwards. The mug of coffee fell and splashed boiling water onto her chest. Her back hit the counter and she slid to the floor in sheer shock, blood dribbling from her nose. Marluxia knelt before her, still smiling as though he'd really kissed her and not elegantly thrown his fist into her face, even in the haunting half light so terrifyingly perfect. He watched her eyes for a few moments as though searching for an answer, then calmly stood and left without a word.


	10. 9 Perfect Stupid Ridiculous Insane

The next morning Vexen looked terrible and refused to even get out of bed, so Naminé kissed him a little better, tucked him up with Snjór in his arms and made her way downstairs to think.  
So Larxene was in a horrible mood, Vexen was miserable and Marluxia just didn't make _any_ sense whatsoever. And Naminé, although not feeling responsible, was determined to sort things out. The common room was empty, the television screaming nonsense at nobody. Naminé switched it off and threw an empty crisp packet into the bin. Larxene was moping in the kitchen. And she'd got a plaster over her nose.  
"Oh, not you too! Are you okay?"  
Half expecting Larxene to brush her away, Naminé busied over her a little more tentatively than she might otherwise have done, but the other girl didn't seem to displeased by this display of worry.  
"Marluxia," She said as Naminé checked the damage and deemed it Not Too Bad. "He punched me in the face. Out of the blue. It hurts like a bitch."  
"_Marluxia_ punched you?"  
Naminé couldn't believe it. Marluxia was too nice to go around punching people! That didn't seem like the amiable pink-haired man at all.  
"He's a bloody psychopath, that's what."  
"Somebody beat up Vexen, too," Naminé said solemnly as she sat down next to Larxene. "It... it couldn't be Marluxia, could it?"  
Larxene shrugged.  
"I wouldn't put it past him."  
Naminé considered this with a horrified thought. What if Marluxia really _had_ beaten up Vexen? But why would he come rushing to Naminé afterwards? Why would he offer to pay Vexen's rent?  
"No, I don't think it was him."  
"Why not? He punched me in the face, why wouldn't he beat the crap out of Vexen, too?"  
"Well, he came to get me so I could look after Vexen-"  
"- To make himself look like he didn't do it, no doubt," Larxene interrupted. "Vexen didn't go out. I'd have noticed if he did. So it must have been Marluxia."  
"But why would he-?"  
"Who knows what's going on in that insane mind of his?"  
Naminé honestly didn't, so she made herself a quick jam sandwich for breakfast and then headed back upstairs. She was determined to find the truth out somehow, but obviously not now because Marluxia wasn't in his room. So what else was there to do but tiptoe back into her own room, still darkened by heavy curtains across the window?  
"Vexen?"  
There was a messy bundle of duvet and blankets at one end of the bed, which wiggled vaguely and humphed as Naminé laid her sandwich down on the desk and climbed onto the mattress.  
"Vexen, are you okay?"  
She tentatively reached out to pat the pile. It squeaked.  
"That's my _bottom_."  
Naminé quickly drew her hand away.  
"Oh. Sorry."  
Moments later, a head popped out of one end of the bundle, not where Naminé would have expected it to be. Vexen looked somewhat harassed, which was quite an achievement considering he'd been alone for the past hour.  
"How are you feeling?"  
Legs extended from the duvet as Vexen rearranged himself into a more elegant position, simultaneously digging himself deeper in amongst the bedding.  
"Same as always."  
Naminé sighed a little. Everything was desolate, nothing made sense, somebody had to be lying and she hated being confused. So she steeled herself, gently manoeuvred Vexen into a position that at least made her feel marginally more comfortable. She cleared her throat.  
"Vexen. We need to ta-"  
The phone rang.  
"- One moment, I'll go get that."  
She hurried out of her room and onto the landing where Larxene had already beat her to the phone. The older woman glanced at her, mid sentence, and suddenly rolled her eyes, slouching and pointing with disgust to the phone.  
"Yeah, no, don't call again."  
There was a murmur at the other end of the line and Naminé could have sworn she'd heard Vexen's name distinctly mentioned. But Larxene interrupted the stream of barely-words with a hiss.  
"I don't want you calling this number. Yeah, look, if you call again I'll have to take legal action."  
She slammed the phone down.  
"Just some prank caller."  
Naminé looked pensively at the phone, hanging again on its hook.  
"Oh. Okay."  
"You're spacy today."  
"I'm confused," Naminé admitted. "I mean, everybody's acting so weird, and I don't really know what's going on and I don't even know what to think any more. Everybody in this house seems to hate everybody else, and I wish that we could all just get along."  
Larxene laughed and leaned down to ruffle Naminé's hair, her old personality returning in a flash.  
"I don't hate you."  
Naminé giggled nervously.  
"But you hate Vexen. And Marluxia punched you in the face."  
Larxene just shrugged at that, turning to go back to the kitchen and presumably wait until it was time for her to leave for her shift at work.  
"Well, they're both dicks, aren't they."  
Naminé opened her mouth to defend Vexen's honour, if not Marluxia's because he was potentially committing random acts of violence about the place and even Naminé wasn't gullible enough to think that nice people would do things like that, but she was stopped by the soft click of her door behind her.  
"Vexen? I thought you were staying in bed?"  
Vexen pointed awkwardly at the phone.  
"Who called?"  
"It wasn't anybody. Just someone trying to waste our time."  
Vexen visibly deflated, shoulders sagging.  
"Oh."  
"Why? Did you want somebody to call you?" Naminé asked in a spate of forgetting the blindingly obvious. Suddenly realising, she was quick to rush over to Vexen, apologising. "Oh, sorry, that wasn't what I meant! I'm sure you'll get a call, don't worry."  
Vexen just shook his head, brushing her away.  
"They would have called by now. Trust me, I've been through enough jobs to know. I'll just have to send off more applications now."  
And he disappeared into his own room, leaving dressed a few minutes later and silently collecting a few things into his ageing leather bag. Naminé followed him rather hopelessly.  
"I thought you were staying at home? You're limping, you should stay in bed."  
"I'm fine."  
It was the same saturnine tone as ever, and it made Naminé want to squeak indignantly and hold Vexen close until he gave in and told her the truth, and didn't just switch himself to autopilot every time she wanted to know how he felt. But she couldn't do that, for whatever reason, so she just sighed.  
"Where are you going?"  
"I'm going to go and see what else is available, since nobody called me back. I can't afford to waste any more time. I'm two months behind rent as it is, and..."  
Even though Vexen didn't complete his sentence, Naminé knew what he was going to say. He didn't want to be homeless any more.  
"Don't worry about rent," She promised, smiling up at him until he awkwardly - and a little bemusedly - reciprocated. "I'll talk to Larxene, don't worry about the rent. We can wriggle a bit more money off Marluxia instead."  
It was almost the truth, she realised with a little inwards giggle. Marluxia would be quite proud of how sneaky she'd managed to be then, almost totally honest to Vexen without revealing Marluxia's secret.  
"O-okay. But I still want to go to the job centre today."  
Naminé decided that she couldn't really argue with Vexen even if she thought he'd be better off in bed, so she nodded and slipped out. On the way to her room, she noticed the phone. She wasn't quite sure why, but with a surreptitious glance around picked it up and pressed redial.

Vexen had just pulled on his shoes when he opened his door to leave the house and walked right into Naminé. She was holding the phone at arm's length because the cord wouldn't allow it any further, and grinning.  
"Phone for you," She said.  
"I didn't hear it ring," Vexen replied as he took the old handset from her and pressed it to his ear. Naminé just smiled a little and skipped out of the way for him to approach the phone's dock. "Hello?"  
"Is this Vexen Carlisle?" Came the muffled voice from the other end of the line.  
"Yes, it is. Can I ask who's calling?"  
"We received a job application from you and wanted to arrange an interview."  
For once, when Vexen's shoulders slumped it wasn't from shame or self-loathing but sheer, thankful relief and when he smiled it wasn't laced with cynicism but hope.

* * *

A week and a half of more monetary issues, bad moods and general confusion later, Vexen flopped home at eight o'clock with an odd mixture of exhaustion, furtive disturbance and downright satisfaction on his face. Naminé had been waiting in the front room for him to return, and scooted over to give him a hug as soon as he collapsed on the sofa.  
"How was it?"  
Vexen's first day of his new job. His new employer had told him at the interview that the dress code was casual, but Vexen hardly _had_ any casual clothes so it had taken quite some time that morning for him to pull on some kind of combination of smart clothes that didn't look too uptight, but now even that had fallen into disrepair, his shirt hanging out of his waistline and his collar skewed. He looked thoroughly harassed... and curiously not too upset about that fact.  
Vexen considered Naminé's question at great length and then finally let out a loud sigh and gave her one single, thoughtful word.  
"Strange."  
"Strange?"  
Vexen nodded as he plucked one hand from Naminé's back and tangled it instead in her hair, softly kneading at her scalp.  
"It was a completely different work environment to what I'm used to. I mean, nobody knew me and all I was doing was admin work anyway until they start the next commission and I can actually get involved, but everybody was..." Again, he had to search for a word of fitting description. "_Friendly_."  
"And that's strange?" Naminé asked with a helpless little giggle. Vexen reached over to swap the TV channel to something that wasn't screeching in his ear, and settled on a radio station playing calming classical music. Naminé hadn't even known it had existed.  
"I'm more used to people shouting at me all the time. And... well, shouting back."  
"No wonder you looked so miserable all the time."  
"I think that's just my natural expression."  
Naminé chuckled again, curling tighter against Vexen's cooler body.  
"But you've changed a lot since then."  
Vexen hummed a little in agreement.  
"Thank God."  
Naminé would have argued, but she couldn't deny that Vexen had been admittedly callous and bad-tempered before everything had happened. It was curious, the closest event she could pinpoint Vexen's abrupt change in personality to was Marluxia's arrival in the household - but that had to be a coincidence. Right?  
Thankfully she didn't need to ponder that conundrum for long as Vexen dislodged her with the great care he always showed her as though he was afraid he'd hurt her and headed for the door.  
"I'm going to go and get a drink. Do you want one?"  
Naminé stood up to follow him.  
"Did you eat dinner?"  
"I did have a sandwich from the canteen at lunch."  
Shaking her head, Naminé sighed and took Vexen's hand as she led him into the kitchen. There were still a few things that needed fixing: the fact that Vexen didn't eat nearly enough to sustain his six-foot-four bulk, for a start - but that was nothing Naminé couldn't handle. Because as tactless as he was wont to be, Vexen was an intrinsically good person and that meant he was never beyond redemption.  
Or... something.  
"You can't go to bed without eating."  
"Buddhists do."  
Naminé glanced up at this sudden snippet of useless information. Somewhere in the back of her mind she vaguely remembered a school trip to a Buddhist temple and something about only eating the first two meals of the day.  
"And did you eat breakfast?"  
"Admittedly, no."  
She sighed again as she pulled a cardboard box from the cupboard and tipped some of its contents into the bowl on the scales.  
"I'm cooking you some pasta."  
Vexen tried to protest on the grounds of Naminé being nineteen and him being twenty-nine and male and perfectly able to look after himself and feeling guilty for forcing Naminé to do things for him, but she'd heard it all before so she simply busied Vexen down into one of the chairs and set to work. She liked cooking, always had; so even if Vexen didn't want her to cook meals for him, he didn't get a chance.  
She was just setting the water to boil when Marluxia appeared in the doorway, glancing around before his gaze settled on Vexen.  
"So I heard you found employment."  
"Twelve more hours a day away from your theatrics," Vexen sardonically clipped. "And I'm enjoying every minute of it."  
Expecting Marluxia to laugh off the insult, Naminé was amazed and a little worried when his expression remained blank and his eyes cold. He opened his mouth to say something, but fearing the worst Naminé was quick to speak up in his place.  
"I'm making pasta. Want some?"  
"Thank you."  
Taking that to be a yes, Naminé nodded and tipped an extra serving of the miniature pasta bows into the bowl before setting about collecting strips of lunch meat, suitable vegetables and a veritable mountain of cheese to pour into her impromptu meal. Marluxia sat opposite Vexen and the two men appeared to be sizing each other up in terse silence. Naminé, panicking, grabbed a few glasses from the tall cabinet in the corner.  
"Drinks?"  
Vexen seemed glad of the distraction as he stood and quickly took the glasses from Naminé.  
"I'll deal with that. What would you like?"  
"Lemonade, please. Marluxia?"  
"There's a bottle of red wine in the cupboard."  
Vexen dutifully pulled out a wine glass and stiffly popped the cork before pouring Marluxia a glass. The pink haired man smiled a little and simply pushed it towards the taller blonde.  
"I don't want to drink alone."  
"_Fine_."  
As Vexen swept past for another wine glass, Naminé carefully reached out and brushed her fingers across his shoulder.  
"You should be nice to him. He's paying your rent, whether he knows it or not."  
Vexen froze momentarily then sighed, shoulders slagging, and poured another glass of wine, all but slamming the bottle down on the counter.  
"I know. He just puts me on edge."  
Naminé offered him a sympathetic kiss to the cheek where the last of the mysterious bruises had almost faded.  
"I'd noticed."  
Thankfully the alcohol seemed to take the edge off Vexen's tense worry, and soon he was slouched in silence against the wall, nursing his glass with a fuzzy half-smile on his lips. Naminé sighed gratefully as it was Marluxia who leaned over and poured him another glass, as she popped two bowls of pasta into the oven to bake until the cheese crisped to golden brown.  
"So how are you?" She asked, wondering if she should have some wine herself - but she'd never liked the fruity beverage much, so she stuck to lemonade. She bobbed her head towards Marluxia a little. "I haven't seen you much recently."  
"I've been keeping myself amused," Marluxia said dismissively. This elicited a grunt from Vexen - and another refill of his glass. "And you?"  
Naminé smiled.  
"I'm doing okay. Thinking about getting a job to help pay for those reinforcement bars we need for the west wall of the house. And it's only a matter of time before the rest of the roof collapses, too, so we'll need to pay for that. And the window in Larxene's room cracked the other day."  
Her smile faded as she sighed, letting her head sink down to her shoulders as she stared into her mug.  
"There's so much to do and none of us have got the money."  
"Don't worry about it," Marluxia said kindly, and there were his gorgeous bottomless eyes again, drawing her in until she drowned. "Money isn't an issue."  
"It _is_," She protested weakly, but her heart wasn't in it. Marluxia had stolen it clean from her chest, she suddenly realised. The half that was left, anyway, because glancing over at Vexen - quietly taking to doodling patterns on the table with one slender finger - she knew that she'd already given that part to him.  
This wasn't, she thought dimly, how people were supposed to fall in love. She wasn't supposed to fall for two men, polar opposites she loved for completely different reasons, simultaneously. But every time she was with Marluxia her heart thudded as though making a bid for escape, and when she was in Vexen's company it fluttered like a butterfly and looking at them both - Marluxia perfectly posed as always and Vexen with his head gently sliding towards the table - she knew she could never choose between them.  
Sighing again as she pulled the finished meals from the oven and set them on the table, shaking Vexen awake - he'd actually fallen asleep; the poor thing must have had an exhausting day - with a gentle push of his shoulders and a smile.  
"Come on, you're not to go to sleep until you've eaten."  
Vexen looked down at the steaming pasta bake and didn't seem too displeased with this analysis. He yawned a little and dug in.  
"I'm just tired."  
"I can see that."  
Marluxia, on the other side of the table, was prodding his meal with a curious interest. He was probably used to better, Naminé thought sullenly. Well, she could always stuff it with MSG if she needed to... unless he was deathly allergic to it, or something. But he didn't seem the type.  
"Is it okay?"  
Marluxia took a bite, chewed immaculately, and smiled at her. Her heart melted.  
"Perfect."  
Vexen glanced up and suddenly the tension was there, the suspense between the two men that Naminé couldn't understand. So she desperately stuttered a little over her gratitude, then changed the subject to the weather - not _too_ bad - then the post - late again - and then her thoughts on taking a job at a local restaurant to help pay the bills until Marluxia gently raised his hand and she fell silent.  
He took his time in speaking, refilling Vexen's glass again from the last drops of wine in the bottle. The man accepted it gratefully.  
"Relax."  
"Y-yes," She promised, glancing over at Vexen, eating silently. He seemed immersed in his own thoughts and ignoring Marluxia, so Naminé let him be. And he was still sitting there drinking wine when Naminé ran the dishwasher, and Marluxia swept her up into his arms and carried her off to cuddle all night in his bed.

Vexen was sullen, even behind a haze of more alcohol than he remembered drinking, when Marluxia returned. It had just been one bottle, hadn't it, or maybe two... Vexen struggled to pinpoint how much wine he'd digested even as his glass magically refilled with the red liquid and almost as quickly emptied again. He searched for something intelligent or cutting to say, now that Naminé was in bed, but there was nothing. Nothing but the faint warmth of Marluxia in the chair beside him, swirling wine in his own glass with elegant fingers. Vexen screwed his eyes tightly closed for a few seconds and suddenly Marluxia was pouring himself another glass of wine, and there was still alcohol in his own glass. Funny, he'd thought it was empty. Well. One more couldn't hurt.  
"I-" He began carefully, lifting the glass up a little and wobbling, "I _hate_ you."  
He didn't even register his voice slurring until he attempted something more eloquent and found that he couldn't. Marluxia laughed at him in a way that made Vexen's insides curl in a way that was definitely not unpleasant enough.  
"Thank you."  
"... Huh."  
He tried to straighten his brain into a coherent thought as Marluxia poured him another glass and - oh, just one more - he was too late to wave him away.  
But then he looked up and Marluxia was studiously running his perfect tongue along the length of his perfect, rigid finger and gazing at him with his perfect blue, blue, blue eyes.  
Vexen returned a little too quickly to his drink. The alcohol swam in his bloodstream, a physical force, that dulled any sense in his mind when soft fingertips, one slightly damp, caught his chin and tipped his face into a perfect perfect perfect giddy kiss.  
Vexen's eyes slid closed.  
His body leaped to respond.  
His surroundings were both abstract and acutely sharp. Was that a tongue pressing past his teeth, were those hands lifting him into strong arms? Nothing made sense and Vexen's head had been incapacitated by wine and his every action was being governed by a force he could neither explain nor control.  
Finally his back came into contact with something that felt familiar, a well loved cotton duvet cover of dusty pink, and somewhere in his dancing vision he picked out vague features of Naminé's room. Of course, as hands stripped him down and indulgent kisses so tender mapped his prickling skin. Of course, he could barely string two syllables into a word. Of course, this all made sense with the addition of mind altering substances, perfect ridiculous insane nonsensical gorgeous moaning gentle probing spinning drunken arousing sense.  
"Naminé?" He croaked vaguely as the last of thoughts and questions drowned in vintage wine.  
"Who else?" Came a husky purr by his ear. Of course.  
Of course, as everything was a blur of pleasure and a buzz of wine, and Vexen didn't even know to care to know to care where his body was or how his head had died as physical sensuality shook him and a heady, delirious climax tore his consciousness in two.


	11. 10 Morning Blues

It was no secret that Larxene had been avoiding Naminé ever since Vexen had finally managed to get in contact with a potential employee; even Larxene herself couldn't deny that. But she was as crafty as Naminé was a hopeless pushover and it only took a few lies to get her off the trail. But still, Larxene just couldn't look her old friend - and maybe her _ex_ friend - in the eye any more.  
But there was one thing that lightened Larxene's heart a little - the sight of Marluxia passionately snogging a very drunken - but more importantly _reciprocating_ Vexen in the hallway last night. It had legitimately been hours until the moans had died down in the other room. Larxene knew that Vexen had always been just a bit ambiguous of sexuality (the important thing being that he was as stiff as a board and never going to get laid, ever), but she'd never had such a clue that he could be so, well... _passionate_.  
So Larxene was in a better mood as she stretched out of her bed, catlike, and slipped out of her room. With a bit of luck, Naminé would have heard the ruckus last night and would disown Vexen immediately.  
She saw Marluxia appear from his own room on the way downstairs, and grinned.  
"Heard you last night. Nice."  
"My compliments."  
Larxene stretched again until her spine clicked, swinging around the end of the banister.. Oh, God. Her mood was exponentially better already.  
"Never knew Vexen could be so loud."  
"I told you all he needed was a little convincing."  
She actually laughed, for the first time in weeks, freely and with perhaps a hint of sadism.  
"Yeah, with _alcohol_."  
Marluxia shrugged.  
"He can be a little uptight without it."  
"Understatement of the century," Larxene muttered affectionately, dropping Marluxia's immaculate lips a kiss. He chuckled a little, hand mapping the sharp curve of Larxene's back as he pulled her closer into the warm intimacy that Larxene, as of late, had sorely missed. It was so easy, she thought deliriously, to simply melt into Marluxia's warm, broad chest and forget that the world existed, to kiss him deeply and passionately safe in the beautiful knowledge that no love existed between them - only lust. It was so easy to forget that Marluxia was a bastard, that last night this very mouth had played kissing games with that despicable moron Vexen, that Larxene's heart belonged to one person and one person alone. Yet, paradoxically, here she was, leaning closer as though laughably desperate for Marluxia's alcoholic, addictive presence, for the way he held her in perfectly muscular arms, hands smooth across her bony body where here fingernails were needles in his back.  
"I hate you," She murmured lovingly in the silent moment that they pulled apart. "The only person I hate more than you is Vexen. And the only reason why I hate him more than you is because he can fuck Naminé and you can't."  
At this, Marluxia chuckled, sweeping Larxene off her feet and dropping her onto the kitchen table with the elegance and meticulous care that was both common and unusual for the gorgeous, enigmatic man. Yesterday's post was forgotten, some paperwork of Vexen's (the damn workaholic) tossed onto the floor and a tabloid newspaper crumpled into wreckage as Marluxia advanced with a foxy grin, palms of his hands noiselessly padding across the varnished wood. Larxene found herself leaning back, her own loathing glare matching Marluxia's demon expression as he covered her, engulfed her, pressed her flush against the kitchen table and kissed her blue and burning with desire, only to roll fluidly away when, above, there sounded a scream.  
"Vexen?"  
"I would imagine he'd be rather sore this morning."  
Larxene fought down the urge to just drag Marluxia into a room she could lock and fuck him senseless, crawling with markedly less agility from the table.  
"Just how hard did you bang him last night, anyway?"  
"How loud was he screaming." Marluxia deadpanned.  
There was a pause. Larxene winced, comically.  
"Ouch."  
"Not to mention a severe hangover, little knowledge of what actually happened last night - and the added confusion of waking up in Naminé's bed."  
"You fucked him in _Naminé's bed_?" Larxene exclaimed incredulously. If she'd been drinking, it would have come out of her nose.  
Marluxia shrugged.  
"What can I say. Personal kink of mine."  
"So where did _Naminé_ sleep?"  
"My room, of course."  
Larxene shook her head as the inhuman howling upstairs finally ceased with the bang of opening doors and scurry of delicate feet filtered through the fragile ceiling tiles.  
"You really are a fucked up shit, Marluxia."  
There was silence for a few minutes; Marluxia raided the fridge and found nothing of interest, Larxene pretended like she cared for Vexen's homework and dumped it in disarray on what had become his chair. Then the pattering feet shot downstairs and a flustered looking Naminé skidded into the kitchen.  
"Glass, tap, water," She rattled off quickly, dashing to each cupboard or utensil in turn. "Painkillers. Larxene, where do we keep the painkillers? Vexen looks like he's been dragged through a bush backwards. Smells like it, too."  
She paused for a moment.  
"Which is weird. Where are the painkillers?"  
It was Marluxia who helpfully guided her to the medical basket where she rifled through an assortment of curious medications before finally plucking out a box of paracetamol tablets. She took two in her palm, thanked Marluxia profusely, and was gone as quickly as she'd appeared.  
The moment her pert little bottom disappeared, Larxene's face crumpled into a scowl.  
"Never ran round like a headless chicken like that for me."  
"Have you ever been woken by an alarm at six thirty in the morning after drinking yourself half to death and then doing anal all night?"  
"Admittedly, no..."

* * *

Naminé could only assume that Vexen had simply had far too much to drink last night as she just about managed to haul him to his feet and help him stagger to the bathroom to throw up. Her first instincts were to get him conscious enough be speaking in more than just monosyllables, so she barely even noticed that he was _naked_ until he was slumped over the glass of water she'd hastily poured for him on the bathroom stool. And it was one of those things that once you noticed it... it was impossible _not_ to look.  
After a full ten seconds of very deliberately trying to stare at Vexen's _face_ and not his... Naminé turned, blushing furiously, away.  
"I'll, uh, get you some clothes."  
"Oh, _shit_."  
"It's okay," Naminé insisted too quickly. "I don't mind. I'll just get you some clothes you can wear."  
"There's a suit on the desk," Vexen said, his voice sounding strangled and deathly embarrassed, "In my room."  
"I was thinking more pyjamas," Naminé replied, making the mistake of overestimating her ability to focus her eyes where her head wanted and not any other part of her body and turning back. But Vexen had a hand clamped over his groin, face even redder than Naminé's.  
"I've got work."  
"You look like Hell."  
"I can't skip work!" Vexen exclaimed, wincing when his own voice was too loud for his battered brain. "It's only my second day, I can't take my _second day_ off work..."  
"You're hung over," Naminé said gently, tentatively brushing her hand over Vexen's freckled shoulder.  
"That's even more of a reason why I can't take the day off," Vexen moaned.  
"But-"  
"Just get the clothes. Underwear, at least."  
"Right."  
Naminé was quick to slip away. There was the full change of clothes just like Vexen had said, neatly folded on his desk with underwear included. Momentarily, Naminé was worried about Vexen's state of mind if he laid out his clothes for the day the night before. But then she realised that this was _Vexen_, and thought little more of it. Half an hour later, Vexen didn't look like a zombie, which was impressive for the pale man.  
"How are you feeling?"  
Vexen had decided that standing up was too difficult, and was perched stiffly at the edge of a sofa made for lounging over. Naminé hadn't even realised that it was possible for furniture to not suit somebody - but Vexen was proof, right there.  
"Not too bad."  
"Well, it's better than fine," Naminé mused, forcing a spoon into his right hand and a bowl of cereal into his left. "Come on, eat."  
"My mouth tastes of dead." Vexen complained.  
"All the more reason."  
Vexen sighed, swapped the spoon into his left hand and grudgingly began to eat.  
"Next time, tell me to stop after the second glass."  
"I didn't even realise you'd had so much."  
Vexen sighed, eyebrows furrowing.  
"Neither did I. And I never realised that alcohol could induce such insane dreams, either-"  
He stopped, and paled from unhealthy white to deathly white. His full spoon, halfway up to his mouth, dribbled milk back into the bowl.  
"What?" Naminé urged, worry overtaking her mind faster than the speed of light. "What's wrong?"  
Meticulously, Vexen stood.  
"I am going to go to work," He resolved slowly. "And I am going to spend the day distracting myself with science. Once they kick me out I am going to come home, and kill Marluxia."  
"Oh," Naminé said. There really wasn't much you could argue with to such a blank, calculative tone. "Well, don't leave a mess on the carpet."  
She chuckled nervously a little. This did not ease the tension.  
"Uh, Vexen? Are you alright?"  
Vexen was already pulling his coat on, collecting his train pass and his keys.  
"I will be in a few years. Possibly. Hopefully."  
With a click of the old front door, he'd gone.  
Naminé stood with a dozen pieces of a four-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and no clue as to the link between any of them on the doormat, watching Vexen disappear with a flick of long, blonde hair.

* * *

When Vexen finally arrived at work, he felt just about ready to collapse. But he managed to stagger in on time without looking _too_ much like he was hopelessly hung over, and take his place at his seat where he quickly decided that if he could help it, he wasn't going to move at all until eight o'clock that evening. Thankfully the trains had been excruciatingly busy enough that Vexen was too preoccupied trying not to fall over in a seething mass of bodies with more confidence that he possessed to think about more troubling matters. And then battling through paperwork and experiment results analysis with a splitting migraine was more than taxing enough to delay further thought to the mess of alcohol and horror that was _last night_. He'd received a few odd looks, undeniably, but that was to be expected - he'd grudgingly admitted to one curious colleague that yes, he was hung over and no, this didn't happen frequently, but the conversation soon descended into the realms of in jokes that Vexen didn't understand and the worrying possibility that everybody was getting entirely the end of the stick. He'd waved people away with nothing more than an antisocial grunt after that, and concentrated all of his rather less vast than usual focus on his work. He didn't stop for lunch, turned to violently sorting his desk which was littered with remnants of his predecessor mid afternoon when he realised he had nothing left to do. Amazingly, he only had to rush to the toilet twice to be sick. He collected a new task, set upon it with feverish dedication.  
He more than likely worried the hell out of the others in the office, who had by and large turned out to be a mellow group fond of promoting a more laid back working environment. But Vexen was not used to laid back. Vexen could not afford to give his overenthusiastic mind one single second free to even contemplate _last night_. He had to work, solidly, for eleven hours until he was ready to collapse and then some. But eventually everybody was leaving, even the receptionist, and as Vexen stepped out into the appropriately pouring rain, he had to come to terms with two inescapable facts:  
Firstly, he hadn't thought to bring an umbrella or a rain coat for the walk to the railway station.  
Secondly, there was absolutely no way in Hell that Vexen could possibly have mistaken a six foot tall man of stocky build with a petite, nineteen year old girl, no matter _how_ drunk he was.  
And, through a thought track that wasn't nearly as convoluted as Vexen wished it was, he could only come to one irrefutable conclusion. And it was one that ruined everything that Vexen had ever held dear about romance and relationships and sex and most deeply, most importantly, himself.

The rain was coming down in torrents now. Nobody without protection dared brave the downpour now except Vexen, dashing past street lamps to cower under the shade of bus stops or overhanging trees. By the time he reached the station, he was drenched. The journey home, back into the pokey little town he'd lived in for close to three years now and still knew nothing about, was an uncomfortable one. And finally Vexen found himself with his hand raised to the lock of the door, key clenched between white fingers, and forced to accept the one thing he never thought would ever, ever, in a million years would apply to him.

He was sexually attracted to Marluxia.


	12. 11 The Ending of Contracts

The problem was that Vexen was the kind of man that, in accordance to all good rules of science, required repeat experiments. When he dragged himself into the darkened hallway like a half drowned cat, the first place he went was the first aid basket. Downed a few painkillers, made a sandwich. Wobbled up to bed, stripped, and crawled in. The day had been underlined as though with a thick, red marker pen with a dull, aching pain in his head and one to match in his backside. And Vexen had only experienced pain like _that_ once before in his life: a memory he sorely wished never again to recall.  
He curled up into a tight ball as he waited for the painkillers to kick in, still feeling like he'd died some time ago, and tried to stop his mind racing. Tracks of analysis mingling with confusion, tainted by horrific realisations, buzzed in a swarm around his head. And it was almost laughable how his insane intelligence, the one redeeming factor that made Vexen anything more than another ageing, miserable wanker, was the very thing that ripped him apart on nights like this. There was only one thing capable of hushing his mind, one thing that with a little bit of luck could convince him that Marluxia, gorgeous Marluxia with unreadable eyes and irresistible lips, was nothing more than a lie.  
He dragged himself out of bed and tiptoed across the corridor.  
"N-Naminé?"  
"Vexen? What's wrong?"  
Naminé responded to Vexen's knock with an open door and a friendly hug that he gladly shared.  
"Can I come in, please?"  
"Of course."  
Naminé took Vexen's forever-frigid hand and led him over to the only furniture in the room that could support them both: the bed.  
"I was just finishing up a job application," She said. "There's an open spot for a waitress in a restaurant nearby and hopefully if I get it I can bring a little more money into the house. And it'll give me something to do now that I'm out of college until September."  
Vexen nodded a little, already relaxing under Naminé's bumbling demeanour and innocent chatter.  
"You'd make a good waitress. Lots of tips."  
Naminé giggled a little.  
"Thanks. So what about you?"  
"I think that everybody at work thinks I'm insane." Vexen admitted after a moment's hesitation. He'd been half-planning to spill his guts to Naminé the moment she invited him in, but it was almost more relieving to simply talk about work. After all, Vexen wasn't sure if he could bring himself to admit that he'd had sex with Marluxia last night... in her bed.  
Naminé hummed, apologetic.  
"Why's that?"  
"None of them are much like me," Vexen said carefully, unsure how to enunciate his thoughts. "They aren't efficient at all, to be honest. I don't think my first impressions have turned out well."  
"I'm sure you'll do fine," Naminé promised earnestly. "I mean, it's going to be different whenever you get a new job, right? It'll just take a little time to get settled in."  
Vexen nodded a little to himself as though trying to convince himself that Naminé was right, and clenched her hand a little tighter. He hardly noticed himself leaning forwards a little, glancing momentarily at her lips... he felt wrong coming to Naminé's room simply looking for love and kisses, but when she closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his she didn't seem to mind at all. And his other hand found the base of her neck, pulling her so shyly a little closer into the cocoon of a deep embrace. And... and this was so much better than Marluxia's invasions.  
But was it really? With Naminé the sensations were so intimate, so shyly wonderful. But Marluxia elicited some kind of delirious insanity inside of him - it was different, but was it better?  
No. Of course it was better, everything about Naminé made Marluxia pale into insignificance, and Vexen forced himself to relax into her kiss and her arms and let his heart do the talking.  
He'd not even realised how heavily he'd been leaning on her until she toppled breathlessly into the pillows, an expression on her face that was nothing short of perfect as she reached up, took his cheeks in her hands, and guided her down for another kiss. Deeper, more confident, swelling with some kind of feeling so alien yet so familiar, the kisses multiplying, blurring into one beautiful feeling that simply overrode all the worries, all the pain, all the confusion, all of everything until Vexen finally pulled back to study the tiny girl beneath him. She was panting a little, pink lips parted and curled into a gorgeous smile. Her hair splayed like a halo around her face, her eyes on his with something deep inside that seemed like adoration.  
She shifted in the bedding a little, arms resting on the back of Vexen's neck, and she opened her mouth a little and whispered;  
"I really like you,"  
And Vexen felt like a schoolboy again, bashfully confessing his very first crush, as he smiled lopsidedly and reached down to caress Naminé's cheek.  
"I really like you too."  
The embarrassment was like a siren ringing through his body, all too acutely aware of his own body and his inexperience. And yet he found his hands brushing against Naminé's neck as he captured her open mouth again, smoothing her skin with his palms, somehow almost knowing what to do. And when she moaned, a tiny vibration in his throat, all he did was smile and tilt his head for a closer proximity, and slide his hands a little closer to her shoulders and inside the collar of her nightgown.  
And she leaned into the kisses, hands sliding around his thin waist and splaying across his bare skin.  
He suddenly realised that he was wearing nothing but boxers.  
Then he realised that he honestly did not care.  
He initiated another kiss, felt the flash of a tongue, encompassed Naminé's shoulders in his hold as she explored the pale expanse of his chest. And blissfully, his mind stopped. He did not need to think, he simply let his emotions govern him as their skin bumped together and he became intoxicated by Naminé's presence.  
Whether he reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind his ear just to replace his hand against her hip or not he didn't know; what he did know was that his mouth had found Naminé's neck and her eyelids were fluttering closed and Vexen recognised all too clearly the stirring deep in his gut.  
He began to rhythmically stroke Naminé's hips, thumbs tracing each curve beneath her nightgown. He knew only what Marluxia had taught him months ago, but he hoped it was enough for her to enjoy, for her to somehow grasp at even a fraction of the emotions burning inside him that he could not articulate.  
She drew her knees up a little, murmuring nonsense into his ear, and bumped against the backs of his thighs. And he leaned back, released his teeth's hold of her neck, and slid his hands across the border between cotton and silky skin. She jolted at his touch and suddenly embarrassed, he pulled away.  
But she found him again. She sat up and found him with the softest of sensual touches, goading him down again.  
"Don't stop," She murmured, sounding as beside herself as Vexen felt. The apprehensions, the inhibitions, seemed to have melted away beneath something that simply felt _right_. So he brushed his palms across her naked legs again, leaning down between her to kiss once more at her lips. Her hands blindly toyed with the hem of his boxers and likewise he explored, lost in the moment, lost in the way Naminé whispered his name as they gulped for breath and fell for more kisses. Was this how it felt? Intimacy with someone you truly cared for, where there was no alcohol or coercion, when you kissed because you _wanted_ to kiss and bumped skin not from desperation to escape, but desire to be close?  
If it was, then slowly, as he reached across a slip of fabric to caress Naminé's stomach, to lean down and kiss the perfect convex curve, Vexen understood. He glanced up, momentarily, at Naminé, and she was smiling blissfully at him, at _him_, and he caught himself with a beautiful girl but only a girl in a state of disarray beneath him, nightgown drawn up to expose her stomach, and blushed again.  
"Oh. Naminé. I'm so sorry-"  
She stopped him with one finger and shushed him.  
"Vexen," She whispered, "I want this."  
But Naminé was too young, Vexen thought. Naminé was young and innocent and-  
"I have had boyfriends before, you know."  
And she reached down to her bedside table, opened the draw and pulled out a little square packet.  
"Please."  
Numbly, Vexen took the condom and meticulously opened the wrapper. Things didn't feel quite so right any more, as though the necessary preparations sort of ruined the atmosphere. Naminé seemed to sense this and reached up to affectionately brush his hair from his face.  
"Only if you feel comfortable with it, of course."  
It was a relief to feel Naminé's lips again, and despite himself Vexen relaxed into her once more, fingertips holding the condom in its packet forgotten.  
"I'm not sure," He admitted. "I'm nervous."  
Naminé smiled. He knew; he felt her lips twist upwards.  
"I think," She murmured against him, shivering in the slightest, "That we both deserve it."  
And Vexen's body certainly agreed. But his mind still wasn't so convinced, because it was one thing to be in boxers with a girl and quite another to be naked, and quite _another_ to be in need of contraception...  
With Marluxia, there was no such shame, but with Marluxia there was no reciprocation, no need to be gentle, no fears that if this didn't go right then he might not have another chance. But Vexen distracted himself with Naminé, long enough to tug his boxers down to his knees, to fumble with the condom and to return to her skin, almost ready. And she reached up, held him, kissed him deeply and lovingly and when he dared look into her eyes she said without words that she was ready.  
Vexen watched her for a moment. Her teeth toyed with her bottom lip through her smile and her muscles were in a slight state of tension. She was nervous, too. And somehow, knowing that she didn't really know what to do either, Vexen found the confidence to lay the palm of his hand against the inside of her thigh, to slide it upwards beneath the cotton of her dress.  
He tentatively pushed aside lace and Naminé bucked her hips just a little at the contact, then lay still. He swallowed thickly and so slowly, so gently, pushed himself inside.  
Nothing could have prepared him for the sensations, for pressing his nose into Naminé's neck as she shuddered beneath him, for falling into some kind of rhythm and the gasping of breaths. And for the tiny hands scrabbling against his back, the little affirmative moans that slipped from Naminé's lips and Vexen had never felt so complete.  
The world became hazy, disappeared completely beneath the rock of their bodies and pulse of their hearts. And he held her close as she tensed around him and lay still, as a beautiful release claimed him and satisfied warmth settled deep inside him. After a few minutes of coasting the wave of fading pleasure, Naminé slipped from the bed, padded over with the cotton of her dress falling once more below her hips, and flicked the switch of the light. Ashamed even in the darkness, Vexen crawled beneath the duvet and replaced his underwear, just in time for Naminé to climb in and drape sleepy arms around him.  
Repeat experiments, maybe, was the last thing Vexen remembered thinking. But that didn't mean they had to involve Marluxia in any way.  
He slept well.

* * *

Morning, grey and overcast. Larxene's mood was distinctly sour; she'd seen Vexen skitter into Naminé's room again last night and not return. The weather was beginning to cool again, temperate rain soon to turn frosty. Larxene truly loathed her home country. The weather was always dank, the company tiresome and everything overpriced. What about the glittering lights of America?  
A distant and impossible dream now. Hauling on Marluxia's fancy leather coat just to scorn him, Larxene trudged out into the garden. It was in a state of organised disarray, Vexen and Naminé's little project halfway through falling into place. Larxene kicked at a pot until it smashed, bleeding soil onto the home-arranged crazy paves leading down to the meadows beyond. She slunk beneath the heavy hood and thick fabric that hung around her toes, watching the dismal sunrise creep above the horizon. And she turned back to the house and felt her heart breaking as she caught Vexen flash by Naminé's window and wanted out. Out of this stupid house, out of Marluxia's mesmerising presence, out of the crushing hold Naminé had on her heart.  
She nearly shrieked, jumping, when strong hands pressed against the back of her neck - but in seconds she realised it was only Marluxia. He pressed his perfect bulk against her back, sliding his hands down his own leather to cup at small breasts. For a moment they were silent, until Marluxia spoke, silkily above the falling mist.  
"Naminé's ours now."  
In an instant, Larxene had torn herself away. He could only mean one thing.  
"_No!_"  
"Last night," Marluxia said, a smirk playing on his lips. "She's not your little pet any more."  
"You lay one finger on her, and I'll-!" Larxene began furiously, but Marluxia stopped her mouth easily with one finger.  
"I kept my promise, Larxene. I didn't take Naminé's virginity. But I can't help it if _Vexen_ did."  
"I'll kill the fucking bastard!" Larxene screamed, smacking Marluxia's hand away. "I'll make him regret the miserable day he was born and the moment he thought he could dare to touch _my_ Naminé!"  
Suddenly Marluxia held her in an iron grip, hand so tight by the base of her spine she thought he could simply clench his hand and snap the thick bones in two.  
"Oh, but you promised," He murmured smoothly. "I kept my end of the bargain. You have no right to touch-" And as though to taunt her, to mock her helpless obsession- "_My_ Vexen."  
"This has nothing to do with the deal!" Larxene screeched, fruitlessly thrashing to get away. "You manipulative bastard, you _knew_ this was going to happen!"  
Marluxia smiled, caressing Larxene's cheek with his knuckles.  
"Of course I did."  
"_Let me go!_"  
But Marluxia shook his head.  
"Not until I can guarantee that no harm will come to Vexen,"  
"You'll be holding me forever!"  
Larxene dug her sharp nails into Marluxia's perfect skin, howling. He hissed, grabbing her wrist and forcing her away. He was too strong, as much as she kicked at his shins and scrabbled to pull his hands from her. But eventually Marluxia seemed to tire, sighing and leaning close to Larxene. She snapped at him, uselessly.  
"I wonder," He murmured, "What Naminé would think if she knew how... protective you were of her..."  
"You can't blackmail me!" Larxene protested, eyes widening. Was there _nothing_ Marluxia wouldn't stoop to?  
Unperturbed, he continued.  
"Of all the boyfriends you've led astray because you wanted her to be yours and yours alone..."  
"You're bluffing!"  
"Of the photographs you take of her when she's sleeping..."  
"You _wouldn't_!"  
Finally Marluxia relinquished his hold of Larxene. She staggered back as though physically punched.  
"Hopefully, I won't have to."  
All she could do was shake her head, face bleaching unpleasantly. Marluxia turned back to the house, but she could _feel_ his smirk.  
"But if I see so much as one scratch on Vexen's skin..."  
He glanced over his shoulder.  
"You'd better start running, Larxene. The world doesn't belong to you any more."

* * *

When Naminé woke, Vexen was half dressed and towelling down his impossibly long hair. Remembering last night, she blushed immediately, digging herself in amongst the duvet. Vexen didn't notice her move, so she simply watched him as he plucked up a comb from the side table and eased it through his hair, pushing it back then letting the locks flop forwards. And maybe Marluxia _was_ right, Vexen did have a sort of handsomeness about him that wasn't easy to catch, in his clear, pale skin and thin body that if he held himself in a certain way was almost elegant.  
Unnoticed, she followed Vexen with her eyes as he shrugged his shirt on and buttoned it up, and then pulled on his suit jacket. It wasn't until he glanced over that she peeked her head out from under the covers, trying not to smile as widely as her heart wanted her to.  
"N-Naminé."  
"Morning," She whispered, slipping out of the bed and tiptoeing over for a cuddle.  
"You're awake," Vexen stated, making her giggle. "I ran you a bath. But I wasn't sure when you'd be up."  
"You're too kind," Naminé insisted softly, pulling away and finding her towel.  
"It's the least I could do," Vexen replied, cheeks suddenly pink. "I've got to go to work soon, but..."  
Naminé nodded. She understood.  
"Thank you," She said honestly, reaching up to steal a kiss from Vexen's lips. It lasted longer than she anticipated, a moment she never wanted to end. "I'll see you this evening."  
Vexen nodded, also so reluctant to pull away.  
"Take it easy today, will you."  
"I'm alright," Naminé chuckled, reaching for the door. Vexen seemed surprised by this.  
"You're not sore, or...?"  
"A little," Naminé admitted. "But it's not going to bother me."  
"If you're sure."  
She found his fingertips as they left the room together, one heading for the bathroom and the other for the front door.  
"See you later,"  
In a rare act of confidence, Vexen raised Naminé's hand and planted on the back of it a little kiss.  
"Have a good day."


	13. 12 As if you Had a Choice

Larxene disappeared again. It wasn't so unusual for her to vacate the collapsing house for days at a time; Naminé barely worried when she read the note on the kitchen table - _Found a cute guy - got the fuckers all to yourself for a while, bitch_ - and since Larxene _always_ swore, the language was hardly a concern either. Naminé had half wanted to tell Larxene about her night with Vexen... but only half. Larxene had a tendency to shred boyfriends to pieces if they so much as patted Naminé's bottom, let alone actually...  
It still brought a faint blush to her cheeks, even a hectic-mess filled week later. And Vexen was the same - just walking into a room that he was occupying would bring a faint smile to his lips, a lightness to his expression that had never been there before. And when his posture was unguarded and his eyes bright, Naminé could easily see from Marluxia's perspective: Vexen _was_ sort of handsome. In his own, sweet, gangly way.  
But he was also incredibly busy. College was starting up again soon (where _had_ the summer gone?), and everything really was insane. There practically wasn't even time for a quick kiss in the morning before Vexen rushed off to work in the mornings, or cold feet in bed late at night.  
And in the midst of it all was Marluxia, unconcerned and apparently unaffected, as picturesquely perfect as always. Naminé caught him dozing on the couch a few times, sometimes perched on a kitchen stool with a tall glass between his fingertips or hands loosely tucked into the pockets of his heavy leather coat in the garden, gazing into the sky.  
It was a lazy Friday afternoon with Vexen gone that Naminé walked up to him, feet crunching on the crisp grass and dew soaking into her plimsolls.  
"Hey, Marluxia."  
He turned, thoughtfully, and nodded a little in acknowledgement. His hair was wet, Naminé noticed - and she couldn't remember seeing it so unkempt before. Without thinking, she reached up to tuck a stray strand of soft pink hair behind his ear; he smiled minutely and caught her hand in his, smooth fingertips caressing her skin.  
"Naminé," He said, the voice of an angel. He twisted and let her in beneath his coat to touch at burning skin, the warmth only possible through intimacy with another human. Naminé rested her head against his chest and felt the steady rise and fall, rise and fall, eyes closed to the world.  
"Why didn't they call you Gabriel."  
Marluxia chuckled shortly.  
"My parents weren't of the religious persuasion."  
"What does Marluxia mean anyway," Naminé continued, words simply appearing at her lips as they occurred to her. Marluxia just _did_ that to her, made her heart bypass logical thought and inhibitions. "I mean. I looked up _Vexen_ on the internet. It means after death there is life, or something. But there's nothing for _Marluxia_."  
"It doesn't mean anything," Marluxia said gently. Naminé found a hand at her hair, another at the small of her back, so softly drawing her closer. She wrapped her arms around Marluxia's thick torso in return, pressed against his silk shirt to the snug skin beneath.  
"It sounds like some kind of flower," She persisted. "Did they just make it up, or...?"  
She might have been imagining it, but was that the briefest clenching of fingertips at her back?  
"It's a long story," Marluxia said in the tone of voice that meant he didn't want to talk about it.  
Naminé shut up. And for a few moments their silence was awkward, until Marluxia pushed her away a little, leaned down, and pressed their lips together.  
Coherence drained dry. It wasn't until air flooded between them that Naminé blushed and stuttered Vexen's name, trying to break a little free. But Marluxia simply kissed her again, and again, until she had melted in his arms, completely.  
"Besides," He whispered as he laid a kiss to her forehead, brushing her hair away with warm hands, "If anyone were Gabriel, it would be Vexen."  
Naminé sank deep into his emotionless eyes and did not understand.

* * *

This was a problem.  
It was a problem because Naminé was with Vexen - sort of - sweet, nervous Vexen with cold feet in bed and a desperate, debilitating need for stability. It was a problem because every time Marluxia kissed her she melted completely, and every time she looked into Vexen's eyes she thought she might be falling in love.  
And she never looked into Larxene's eyes any more.  
Larxene came back nearly a week later, on a cold Saturday evening, drunk and screaming. Naminé had been in the living room, working on a new art project, and at the sound of the front door crashing open she rushed outside to see Larxene stumble into the corridor. She tried to kick the door closed, missed, lost her balance and would have fallen to the floor if Naminé had not been there to right her.  
"Where's that _fucker_..." Larxene began, righting herself against the wall and kicking off her perilous heels. Her hair was in disarray, her make up smudged, her too-short skirt riding up on her bare, prickling legs. "Where's the Goddamn fucker who stole my-"  
Naminé thought she meant Vexen, at first, and tried to gently lead Larxene into bed where she could do the tall blonde no harm. But then their eyes locked for a split second and Larxene's face crumpled with rage, one jittering hand pointed accusingly at Naminé.  
"_You_," She said at length, venomously. "You, you rotten, two-faced, whorish little _bitch_, I never want to see your hideous face or your shapeless body or your pretty big blue eyes or your ageing, lifeless boyfriend or your gorgeous American _slut_ ever again! You think- you think you can just _take_ my heart like that and give _nothing back_? You think you can _break_ me, do you, you heartless witch? Think that with one innocent look you'll have me at your _feet_?"  
Naminé, who'd clasped her fingers around Larxene's bare forearm, let her hand drop. It moved through treacle, slow motion, lazily, lifelessly, to her side. Larxene swayed but did not fall. What was lost in her loose limbs and loose tongue was compensated for by the blazing of her eyes beneath thick trails of mascara and ugly smears of eyeliner. When she looked at Naminé she _burned_.  
"Best friends? You just wanted to _fuck_ me over! Laugh, bitch, I fucking _dare_ you. I'm not fooled any more, _Naminé Grace Stevens_. Your little play? _Over_. I _hate_ you. I fucking _hate you_."  
The silence spanned forever until Naminé realised that the wetness of her face was tears.  
"You're drunk," She said, voice choking. Larxene laughed, a maniac, insane, beside herself with poison clogging her veins.  
"Funny, isn't it," She chuckled huskily, "How alcohol makes everything so much clearer."  
"You don't know what you're saying," Naminé insisted. Who she was trying to convince probably wasn't Larxene.  
"Everything becomes clear with alcohol," Larxene slurred. "Isn't that right, Vexen?"  
Naminé turned - but nobody was in the hallway. Vexen had been tired tonight and gone to bed early and his presence was nowhere here.  
"What are you talking about?"  
"Oh, he didn't tell you?" Larxene laughed, an inhuman giggle. "Oh, that's _rich_. He didn't tell you how he likes to fuck Marluxia behind your back? Oops, did I say that out loud?"  
Larxene's words, as though they were in themselves alcoholic, took several moments to sink into Naminé's brain. Hopelessly, she shook her head, reaching out to touch Larxene but only to be rejected with a slap of a thin hand.  
"Vexen's not even gay."  
"That's what he'd _like_ you to think," Larxene retorted, slinging her handbag off her shoulder and tossing it, carelessly, to the floor. "Oh, Naminé, poor little naive, gullible Naminé, of course Vexen doesn't want you to know. Aren't you glad you have _me_?"  
"You're lying," Naminé said weakly. "Vexen wouldn't. He would have told me. Marluxia would have told me, you're lying, you're drunk, you don't know what you're talking about."  
"I know exactly what I'm talking about," Larxene said. And she smiled. Her lips twisted upwards, her mouth formed a sneer, her eyes glittered beneath her ruined face. "It's not my fault if you're falling in love with a lying, cheating _slut_."  
Naminé ran.  
It was ludicrous, it was stupid; Vexen hated Marluxia and Vexen loved _her_ - at least, she wanted him to - and Larxene was drunk and it was late but the seeds of doubt were in her mind now and she had to know for sure.  
She slipped, ever so quietly, into her room where Vexen would be lightly dozing until she arrived to give him a goodnight hug. She kept her hand tight around the door handle, the light of the landing comforting and close.  
"Vexen," She whispered, willing her voice not to break. He huffed a little, and in the darkness she heard the shuffle of bedsheets as he sat up.  
"Yeah?"  
Naminé bit her lip and forced a sob to return down her throat. It tasted bitter, crashed with resentment welling up inside her.  
"Vexen, did you sleep with Marluxia."  
And there was a horrible, horrible pause. And when Vexen spoke, his voice was as dead as she felt inside.  
"Who told you that?"  
Very, very slowly, Naminé stepped out into the hallway and closed the door.  
Well.  
She couldn't go to Marluxia. Vexen had been lying to her for months. Larxene had passed out in the hallway.  
Naminé unlocked the back door and slipped out, turning the key again on the outside. The country spanned, past the fence around the garden and into no man's land. The mist was heavy - the view for miles became a few feet's clarity. Naminé stepped onto the lawn and felt the damp grass between her toes.  
Methodically, she paced, counting steps as she went. Ten steps and she could hardly even make out the outline of the house. Twenty and it had been engulfed. Thirty, forty, fifty and there was the gate to the fields.  
Distantly, she heard her name being called, far behind her, in a voice that was nasal and grating on her ears. She ignored it and opened the gate, closed it with a discrete click. Twenty more paces and the voice had disappeared, safely locked away behind a foggy night and a clear mind. Naminé walked until her feet were numb, stood until she could hardly feel her legs.  
She didn't want to return. Not to where her almost-boyfriend fucked men and her best friend hated her and Marluxia.  
Marluxia with bottomless eyes. Marluxia with a gorgeous body, Marluxia with perfect hair, Marluxia with the slightest hint of an American accent in his deep, rich voice. How much had he lied, anyway? Was anything that he said true? Who _was_ he?  
Naminé glanced back at the fog, then down at her blue feet. One step, two steps, three steps. She walked down to the river and then stepped in. It wasn't deep; the current wasn't strong enough to any more than tug at the ends of her trousers. Stones on the bed cut at her feet and mud dug beneath her toenails. She stepped out the other side. How far could she walk, anyway?  
Walk.  
Vexen. Walking with Vexen, laughing at the mud on their faces and the innocence of a shaky almost-friendship.  
Almost.  
Everything about Vexen was almost. He was almost attractive, he was almost in love, he was almost emotionally stable. She almost believed him. She almost wanted to run back and run into his arms and hold him tight and feel his cold feet in bed and kiss his thin lips and see him almost smile.  
But only almost.  


* * *

  
It took Vexen approximately twenty seconds to coax his limbs, suddenly lead, to move. He hit the door in three, stared wildly around the landing and down the stairs, hissing Naminé's name. Ten more seconds and he'd reached the ground floor, skidded around Larxene's unconscious body and into the kitchen. He lost count how long it took to sweep the empty room, seeing nothing out of place, and try the back door. It was locked, the keys nowhere. Vexen tried the front door, ran outside in his pyjamas, yelled for her. The mist was thick and low, choking, as he ran around and vaulted the side gate (could he even _do_ that?), running past the half-renovated flowerbeds and crazy paving.  
"Naminé?"  
He thought he might have seen a figure disappear into the grey nothingness, ran after it like a dog chasing shadows.  
"Naminé!"  
He fell roughly on a badly laid stone, grazed his palms on errant brambles. The fog soaked through his shirt, plastered it to his skin. Bit into him like there was even anything left to take.  
Vexen ran down to the gate and yelled as loud as his lungs could manage. No reply. Could he run down the sloping valley on the off-chance Naminé was there?  
What other choice did he have?  
He couldn't get his freezing fingers to operate the catch on the gate so he climbed over that, too, fell into a wide lope, still calling until his voice could do nothing but rasp.  
If Naminé was not here, he wouldn't find her now. He kept running. Gravity pulled him down, down to the river where the water lapped at his knees. He stopped to catch his breath, shivering as the water burned away precious body heat, ran again. The terrain became rougher, steeper. He climbed anyway, with some feverish desperation that was not supposed to make sense. He knew this valley well enough; he saw it every day out of the kitchen window. Here was limestone shingle, moist from the low clouds. Vexen proceeded more carefully, testing each stone before advancing. Here was a grove of trees. Here the gradient was steeper still.  
What Vexen did not know was that there was no grip to this patch of grass. He did not know until he was tumbling uselessly down the hill, limbs cracking unpleasantly against jutting stones. He did not know until his back slammed against a tree and he was jolted to a halt.  
There was blood. He could feel it, warm against his burning skin. There was pain, in his head and in his body and in his heart.  
For a few moments he lay still and wondered if he was dead. But he was breathing still, if erratically, and when he asked his toes to twitch they responded. What he did not have the energy to do was stand up and slide back down to the river then begin the draining ascent back to the house.  
Vexen closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. What was the time? When was dawn? When would the people at work realise he was not there? When would they call? When would Marluxia or Naminé pick up and shake their heads and shrug? How long would he lie here limp against one tree amongst hundreds?  
Would he die?  
Would he develop hypothermia? Would he bleed to death? Would he die of a broken heart?  
Would he have a funeral?  
Would anybody attend?  
Vexen imagined a small church, a vicar and an undertaker, his coffin bare of decorations lowered into the grave. Maybe there would be a representative from work - but nobody knew him yet. Maybe Marluxia would bother to pay his last disrespects. Maybe he would have found another blonde to fuck.  
Vexen imagined a pair of walkers, perhaps a pretty girl in her late teens and a pitiful excuse for a man with long, ragged blonde hair and awkward limbs, finding his body a few days later. Maybe a week, maybe another Saturday. Maybe the girl would scream. Maybe they would call the ambulance but he'd have been long dead.  
Suddenly the dawn felt a long way away indeed.

* * *

Eventually it was necessity that brought Naminé back, trudging through the river and up the hill, unlocking the door and slipping inside. She ran herself a bath, as an afterthought stripped Larxene down and plonked her in once she was finished, wiping her wiry body off. So she had to drag her across the hallway to get her into her own room, but she got there in the end, tucking Larxene safely beneath the covers. Did she really deserve it after everything she'd said? Probably not. But Naminé couldn't just go around hating everyone because things were turning out bad.  
She still couldn't return to her own room. And knowing what had happened, she couldn't slide into Marluxia's bed. Briefly, she contemplated sharing with Larxene - but in the end she just collected a few spare blankets from the cupboard and settled down on the couch.  
It was an uneasy night.

* * *

Morning.  
Naminé woke to the sound of keys jangling into the bowl on the windowsill, wondered who would be coming home at this time of day. It was Marluxia who poked his head in, coat and shoes still on.  
"Forget where your room was last night, sweetheart?"  
Naminé looked deep into Marluxia's eyes until it hurt her to stare.  
"No," She said crisply, "I didn't want to sleep with Vexen."  
She stood up and stretched the cramp out of her limbs. She didn't want to talk to Marluxia. Not now. He felt fake, like the stuff of cheap pornographic movies that Larxene used to watch on the late night telly.  
To this he had no reply.  
"Larxene around?"  
"In her room." Naminé almost - _almost_ - snapped.  
Marluxia disappeared. Naminé glanced at the clock - Vexen would be getting up soon - then quickly made breakfast and went to check on Larxene before she had any awkward meetings in hallways with him.  
Larxene was dead to the world. It was probably better; when she woke up she'd have the hangover of her life. But Naminé waited around in her room anyway because it was the last place Vexen would be, until eight o'clock rolled around and Vexen would be leaving.  
Naminé didn't hear the door. Ten past, still no sound. Maybe he was running late. Maybe he'd left early.  
Naminé did not care.  
Vexen was a liar.  
She would have understood. She would have _understood_ if he'd sat her down and said, Naminé, you're a nice girl but I'm gay. End of. Naminé would have understood. He didn't have to lead her on. He didn't have to... Not when it was her _first time_. He didn't have to look at her like he _loved_ her and do that to her, knowing she'd break if she knew. He could have told the truth.  
Naminé did not care in the slightest about Vexen. For all she cared, Vexen could go have sex with every man in the world. Hell, Vexen could fall off a cliff and break his spine and Naminé would not care.  
He wasn't worth caring about.  
Obviously.  
Naminé leaned down and buried her nose in Larxene's sheets and cried.


	14. 13 Unluck

Naminé woke to the sound of sirens. Groggily, limbs stiff, she returned to consciousness to peer out of the window and see an ambulance outside the house. Larxene, for her part, groaned some obscenity along the lines of "shut the fuck up" and rolled over. So much for helpful.  
Naminé hurried downstairs to see Vexen, pale as milk, sodden and bloodstained, be loaded onto a stretcher by two professionals. Marluxia was already in the doorway, expression dark.  
"What happened?"  
"He's broken at least two ribs, and his left arm and leg."  
"H-how?"  
"I'm guessing that he slipped on a patch of grass last night and fell down the scree over the valley. He was lucky he hit the tree, otherwise he would probably be dead at the bottom of the river by now."  
Naminé paled as the paramedics checked Vexen over. He looked even less alive than usual, eyelids fluttering in delirious unconsciousness and breath shallow.  
"Why was he out there in the first place?"  
Marluxia glanced over to give her a steely glare.  
"I'd say he was looking for something. Or someone."  
For all the unspoken accusations, Naminé had no reply. Marluxia sighed a little to himself.  
"You go in the ambulance. I'll catch you up in the car."  
"What about Larxene?" Naminé asked as she tugged on her shoes. Vexen was being hurried into the ambulance, paramedics everywhere asking questions and performing tests. Marluxia answered them all with straightforward professionalism and nothing more. Not even the attractive blonde woman with more cleavage than she clearly knew what to do with.  
"She can survive a hangover without you. Get in the ambulance."  
Naminé could do nothing but comply. The doors were closed on her and she was left to the paramedics and Vexen, cold to the touch and deathly white.  
"Is he going to be alright?" She found herself asking distantly as an oxygen mask was applied to his face, needles pressed into his arms and an IV drip to his elbow.  
"He'll live," One of the paramedics told her as he worked. "Aside from numerous grazes, most of his injuries were closed. He hasn't lost too much blood."  
Naminé didn't understand much as they briefly explained the damage, but she nodded anyway, watching with a morbid interest the procedures as they approached the hospital. There was nothing else to do. Occasionally, she convinced her fists to loosen their grip on her trouser fabric a little. She half hoped Vexen would wake up, open his eyes for a convincing flash of brilliant green just to give a little colour to his body, but he was a dead weight even after they wheeled him into a ward to crack his bones back into place. She waited outside in an ergonomic failure trying to pass as an orange chair. After fifteen minutes Marluxia, in a turtleneck that stretched taught across his impressive chest, joined her.  
Immediately, Naminé wished he'd been stuck in traffic. She didn't want to talk to Marluxia. Not after last night. She wanted to check that Vexen was okay and then go home. Larxene would be better company than either of the two men. The silence between them was extensive, awkward. Marluxia conversed with a few passing nurses, collected a pair of drinks at a vendor. Naminé sat with painful rigidity and waited anxiously to be allowed into the ward.  
"How did you find him?" She eventually asked when the tension became almost too much to bear. "The limestone's all the way over the other side of the valley."  
Marluxia glanced over.  
"I noticed him running after you last night."  
Naminé focused on fiddling with a loose thread in her trouser leg. Marluxia's tone was not accusing: it was flat. Too flat.  
"He lied to me," She whispered, voice choked. "Why would he do that? I would have understood."  
Marluxia leaned back on his chair, watching an old woman be wheeled past on her bed.  
"Vexen has a lot of issues with himself, Naminé. Sometimes you have to cut him some slack and take him as he is."  
Just then, the doctor slipped out; Naminé had no more time to do anything but mull over Marluxia's comment as the two of them were lead inside. Vexen was there on the hospital bed, pale but breathing steadily through an oxygen mask, his left leg elevated and covered by a clinical blue and white splint. A bandage held his hair rather inelegantly out of his face. Helpless and exposed, he looked almost young.  
"Why do horrible things always happen to Vexen," Naminé murmured numbly. Marluxia simply laid a warm, heavy hand on her shoulder and said nothing. "Will he wake up?"  
"He needs to rest."  
"He was looking for me," Naminé found herself whispering, head shaking in disbelief. "He was looking for me and look what happened to him. How long was he out there for?"  
Behind her, Marluxia was a silent body guard. They watched Vexen sleep for a few minutes then awkwardly slipped away.  
"I should buy him a card."  
"Why don't you make him one?"  
"That's a good idea."  
They wove through parked cars and milling patients until they reached the corner of the overflow car park and there was the most gorgeous car Naminé had ever seen. She didn't even know why she was surprised; Marluxia was rich and flamboyant, he _would_ have the sleekest, most aerodynamically perfect car ever designed. But it just didn't fit in in a state hospital car park, beside hefty people carriers and smart, functional ambulances.  
Marluxia, sensing her awe, chuckled a little, opening the passenger door for her.  
"Beautiful, isn't she?" He said as she slipped into the leather interior.  
"Wow..."  
Marluxia slid easily into the driver's seat and the ignition automatically hummed to life, incar screens and dials lighting up.  
"I don't usually use this car," He said as he rolled out of the car park - and Naminé could _feel_ eyes of passersby on her - "But the Jaguar needed repainting and the Mercedes has a flat tyre."  
Naminé remembered the Mercedes. It was Marluxia's everyday car, the one he used for mundane journeys with doors that opened upwards and people would kill to own.  
"I didn't know you had more than one car," She commented, unsure what to say. Funny, when Larxene had said "rich", before Marluxia had even slid fluidly into her life, she'd thought that he was a well off city worker, a banker or salesman. She hadn't realised that Marluxia was going to be so stupendously wealthy.  
It made her wonder where on Earth Larxene had even met him.  
"My brother had a bit of a thing for cars," Marluxia replied smoothly. "He collected them. I feel as though I ought to honour him. So yes, I do have a couple."  
"I didn't know you had a brother," Naminé found herself saying in surprise. Marluxia glanced at her briefly, but his focus soon returned to the road, minute twitches of his hands translating into perfect curves in the car's tyres.  
"I don't any more," He finally murmured.  
The rest of the journey was conducted in silence.

* * *

When they arrived home, Marluxia let her in at the door and then disappeared again. Naminé felt a little bad; Marluxia had never mentioned his family before and now it seemed like there was a reason why. For whatever reason, she imagined two young men, close friends, and a car accident that only one of them walked away from.  
Larxene was awake now, curled in agony over a steaming mug of coffee. She had nothing more than a grunt for Naminé as the younger girl entered the kitchen - until Naminé pulled a packet of painkillers from the medical cupboard and warmed a glass of water, drizzling lemon juice and honey into it.  
"Thanks, sweetheart."  
Larxene's voice was hoarse, a shadow of her usual sharp tones. And her eyes were dull, sunken in hung over sullenness. Naminé gently rubbed her back until she'd finished the coffee and downed the paracetamol.  
"You should go back to bed," She eventually whispered as she tidied crockery away. Larxene shook her head.  
"Not lying around like a lonely fucker all day. Where's Marluxia?"  
Naminé shrugged.  
"He's out in the car somewhere."  
"Vexen?"  
Naminé hesitated for several seconds, enough for Larxene to glance up in questioning silence.  
"He had to go to hospital," She admitted. "He fell over and broke his leg."  
She left it at that. Larxene snorted, shaking her head until she winced.  
"Ouch. And I thought my morning was bad."  
Naminé sat down opposite her at the table, pulled over one of her glossy magazines and skimmed through the articles.  
"How much of last night do you remember, anyway?"  
"I don't even know how I got home," Larxene replied with a short laugh. Naminé sighed a little. So Larxene didn't even have any recollection of her fit last night; maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she really didn't know what she was talking about, she'd just been so drunk that anything could have spewed out of her mouth.  
And Vexen might not have even slept with Marluxia.  
Suddenly Naminé felt like she'd horribly overreacted. But the way he'd replied last night, the way Marluxia spoke to her as they watched Vexen in exhausted rest at the hospital... No. Larxene was right. Whether she'd meant to be or not.  
"Hey, Larxene..."  
- But she'd ask later, when Larxene was alive to the world and she'd summoned up a little courage.  
"Uh huh?"  
"I... how are you feeling?"  
"Like a ton of shit fell on me last night," Larxene replied bluntly. "And a huge cock. Jesus."  
Naminé coloured a little.  
"You know, I... Well, speaking of that. I mean, not huge, but. Well. I wouldn't know, it could be, but-"  
"Yeah, yeah, before you get your knickers in a twist. You and Vexen, I heard."  
"I wanted to tell you face to face," Naminé whispered hopelessly. "But. I don't think it's going to happen again anyway."  
"Oh?"  
"Well. We had an argument."  
Larxene rolled her eyes and returned to staring morosely at her place mat. The floral designs, once gaudy in their hues, were faded and stained to a sepia tone.  
"Yeah, that does have a tendency to ruin everything."  
Naminé unwittingly recalled last night's accusations and insults. How much of that had been the product of a drunken stupor - and how much previously unspoken truth?  
"Except he's in hospital now."  
"Wanker."  
"Don't be mean. He was badly injured."  
"What did he do, trip over his huge feet and fall down the stairs?"  
"I'm not sure," Naminé lied. "I didn't know until he was being carted away this morning."  
The conversation lulled to a natural halt. It was Larxene who spoke next, a sardonic smirk on her lips.  
"You know, you've talked to me more in the last five minutes than this entire month combined."  
When Naminé looked up, she saw Larxene differently: or maybe the same, the same as before drunken screams and before Marluxia and before Vexen.  
"I'm sorry," She whispered. "I just..."  
"Things have been hectic, yeah, I know."  
"Things have been Vexen," Naminé corrected. To her amazement, Larxene laughed.  
"So... tedious, unlucky and generally fucked up?"  
"Since he's not here, I'm going to resent that for him," Naminé replied smoothly. Larxene laughed again, standing to make another mug of coffee.  
"I've missed you, kiddo."  
Naminé found herself slipping from her chair to infiltrate Larxene's wiry arms with a hug. She was like a small, fiery warm Vexen, but tight like Marluxia and soft in ways that neither of the men could really quite be. She was Larxene, and she hugged like she had the intention of killing.  
"Me too."  
It was a long one that lasted until the kettle boiled and Larxene had to pull away for peripherals.  
"You have to be nice to Vexen, though," Naminé said sternly.  
"No way. That's impossible."  
"I mean it. He's shaky enough as it is, he doesn't need you making him worse."  
"Oh, come on," Larxene began. "He's not _shaky_- well. He kind of is, Jesus, what is up with the world?"  
"He has less self confidence than... well, something with no self confidence." Naminé said, waving her hands a little like they'd help her explain. "But, you know, he's been at a loose end ever since he lost his job."  
"Again?"  
"No, it only happened once."  
"But that was months ago."  
"I know," Naminé said. "But I don't think it was just losing his job that disorientated him like that. I just don't know what else happened. He hasn't told me anything."  
Larxene shrugged.  
"Whatever."  
And she grabbed her coffee, hugged Naminé one last time and headed for the door.  
"I'm going back to bed."

* * *

It wasn't until after Naminé had eaten for the evening and receded to her room that she heard the front door click to Marluxia's return. She slipped out into the corridor to see him hanging up his coat and kicking off his shoes. He seemed tired, almost lethargic in his movements. He didn't seem to notice her at the top of the stairs so she politely coughed to attract his attention; startled, he straightened and snapped up.  
"Naminé."  
"Where were you all day?" Naminé asked, slipping down the stairs. Her hand ran down the banister, caught a few splinters in the old wood.  
Marluxia simply shrugged, unbuttoning his shirt and slipping it fluidly from his shoulders. Naminé stared: she couldn't help it. Marluxia was so _beautiful_, smooth and flawless, the arch of tight muscles laced across his tanned chest. He was the epitome of human perfection and he was standing half-naked three feet from Naminé's blushing cheeks.  
"Here and there."  
Naminé shuffled her feet, having to physically restrain her hands from flying to her mouth as Marluxia's fingers fell to his belt buckle; but he simply loosened it and left the waistline of his trousers hanging low around his hips.  
"Um," Naminé began elegantly, failing to tear her eyes away from the revealed line of brown hair trailing down Marluxia's stomach.  
"Yes?"  
Marluxia swept past her, a hand catching the small of her back. She scuttled in time, two pattering steps to Marluxia's long stride. And he lead her into his bedroom where she found herself perched on his bed, focus firmly on the floor.  
"There was something you wanted to say?"  
Thoughts of last night, Larxene's accusations and Vexen's lack of denial, flew to the forefront of Naminé's mind.  
"N-no. I don't think so."  
She glanced up momentarily to see Marluxia in perfect nudity, facing away from her. Reddening furiously, she looked away - but she could still see in her periphery his feet padding towards her. But then he picked up a pair of silk drawstring pyjama trousers and slipped them on. Then the bed dipped beside her as he took a seat on the thick mattress.  
"You're tense," He murmured, hands falling to her shoulders.  
"I'm worried about Vexen," Naminé half-lied. Marluxia tutted a little as his fingers kneaded expertly against Naminé's muscles.  
"He's in safe hands now."  
Naminé shook her head, leaning back against Marluxia. She couldn't help it; she just naturally sank into him. She hadn't had much of a chance to talk to him since the whole crisis with Vexen.  
"I don't mean that," She said, although he was worried for his physical wellbeing as well, "I mean. He hasn't been right since... well, for ages."  
Marluxia pulled her into his arms and pulled the feather duvet around them.  
"He'll heal with time," He replied softly. "Let your mind rest for once."  
Naminé wasn't so sure, but she nodded anyway.  
"I don't know what to do," She admitted after a few minutes of easy silence. "I mean, I thought I really liked Vexen, but..."  
Marluxia simply made an affirmative noise in the back of his throat, so Naminé continued. After the fist confession, it all just began to pour out. She couldn't stop herself; none of her friends knew about Vexen, Larxene was horribly biased... And Naminé really needed to get everything off her chest.  
"Well, I just don't know any more. I mean, we're nothing alike, and he's too old for me anyway. I was sure it felt right before, but now... I don't know. I just don't know. I feel like there's a lot of very important things that he won't tell me, and how can I trust him if he's lying to me?"  
At the end of the monologue, Naminé let out a little sigh and leaned back against Marluxia's chest. She wasn't quite sure how she'd ended up sitting between his legs but she felt comfortable there, surrounded by his warmth and comforted by the company.  
"What do you think?"  
Marluxia considered the question for some time.  
"I think you should follow your heart," He said eventually.  
"But I don't know what my heart wants," Naminé argued hopelessly. Marluxia chuckled a little, sweeping her blonde hair from her neck to gently kiss at the pale skin.  
"Then I suggest you endeavour to find out."  
Naminé glanced up at Marluxia, so close, so close. She hadn't expected the proximity to his lips and - just like Vexen in the bath - suddenly she felt warm skin against her in the softest of kisses.  
Marluxia was smooth where Vexen was chapped, tasting slightly of papaya lip butter where Vexen was nothing more than the flavour of human. He sent waves of sensuality down her back where Vexen only murmured wordless gratitude, kissed easily and luxuriously where Vexen was tense to the point of desperation.  
After a few moments of half-mindless bliss, Marluxia pulled away. He was smiling, but beneath the curve of his lips there was an almost melancholy sadness that Naminé did not miss.  
"You're thinking about him, aren't you," He said lightly. Naminé flushed pink.  
"M-Maybe."  
Marluxia chuckled, finding her easily with his hands, rolling her onto her side where he shielded her in the dimming light. He kissed her lips, kissed her jaw, kissed her neck until her fingers clenched and her toes curled.  
Vexen. Oh, God, Vexen, where was Vexen while Marluxia toyed with her so simply and she could not resist his touches? Where was Vexen to nervously set the record straight, where was Vexen to run after her in the night?  
Naminé found her stomach cold, her body shivering despite Marluxia's warmth. She found his hands, prised them away, shied from his kisses.  
"Stop," She managed to mumble weakly. "Stop, I don't want this. Not now."  
She couldn't explain the fear that flashed momentarily inside her; Marluxia was not a threatening man, nor was he cruel: he would listen to her and understand her hesitation, surely. But for a few moments Naminé found herself trapped beneath his bulk, his perfect muscular body, fearful that she could not stop what had set in motion. Had she consented by returning his affections?  
But Marluxia pulled away with another small smile, drew his arms around her and kissed her forehead and did nothing more. Apologetically, she returned the cuddle and buried her nose in the crook of his neck. Beneath a distinctly floral cologne and the smell of freshly cut grass she could just pick out Marluxia's natural scent, a clean warmth that resonated from his body.  
"I'm sorry," She whispered into the gloom. "I panicked."  
"It's natural," Marluxia murmured in reply. For a long while, nothing else was said.  
"Do you think," Naminé continued eventually, "Do you think I could love him?"  
"That's for you to decide, sweetheart,"  
Naminé sighed a little, curling closer against Marluxia's chest, comforting arms and warm feet. She thought she'd elaborate but without knowing the truth, without knowing Vexen's story or hearing Marluxia's witness, she had nothing left to think. And she couldn't ask Marluxia, not as she lay against his clear skin and felt his heart beat just like any other human.  
"Where did you come from?"  
There was a slight movement as Marluxia shifted, as he brushed the hair from her cheek and kissed her once, twice, again.  
"It doesn't matter," He whispered into her ear. "I'm never going back."


	15. 14 Cuddle Benefits

A few minutes of blissful confusion was all that Vexen had for comfort when he woke to find himself in a clinically white room with clinically white sheets and the displaced natural glow of sunlight beaming through the window. It was for several moments that he had no idea where he was or indeed even who he was, and lay instead in half-contented listlessness until memories and recollections began to filter through into his mind.  
Oh, _shit_. Naminé.  
Vexen's body tensed instantly to fly from the bed in search of the girl, but the spasms of pain that wrecked his frame soon had him inwardly cursing and lying as stock still as he could manage.  
"Vexen," He finally told himself very seriously, breath strained, "You are an idiot."  
And for a few minutes he lay in sullen disquiet, until the pain had eased a little to merely a dull ache in his shattered bones. The dour station of the hospital bed left him nothing for company but his thoughts, and they weren't pretty ones. First and foremost, easily the most pressing matter; he was in hospital with casts around his limbs and a searing pain in his side whenever he inhaled. Beneath these he could feel a vague smarting in his head and hands, the base of his spine and across his skin. But if he lay still enough and cleared his mind they became nothing more than minor - if painful - ailments. His skin would heal over in time.  
Worse was the realisation that this made for an impressively pathetic track record of good physical health, with flu and Larxene's vicious nature and alcohol induced agony and falling down hills in the middle of the night. Instantly he was thinking through his current projects at work, wondering what could be furthered with a laptop propped up on his thighs, planning ideal excuses and compromises and seriously hoping that his injuries weren't as severe as they felt and he'd get to go home - and back to work - soon.  
And then were the worries that he procrastinated attending to for some time. Naminé. Oh God, she _knew_.  
Vexen shuddered involuntarily, a movement that soon stopped as agony again sliced through his side. If Marluxia was going to tell her, he would not have told her then - it must have been Larxene. Larxene passed out in the hallway. Drunk Larxene. Of course, spilling all of Vexen's dirty secrets like she had any right to insinuate that he even enjoyed Marluxia's violating touches. But he could explain everything, couldn't he? Tell Naminé how Marluxia had caught him in his own room, his _sanctuary_, and broken him again and again.  
It was only for a few moments that he managed to delude himself into thinking that he could ever actually look Naminé in the eye and tell her the truth.  
Twenty minutes later he was falling into an uneasy delirious sleep. Two disorientating days later he woke again with an itch he couldn't reach and a nurse tidying him up in his room.  
"Excuse me, ma'am?"  
His voice sounded croaky, inhuman and unreal. The nurse, a middle aged woman with a plump, motherly figure, looked up with a slight smile.  
"Yes?"  
"What happened to me?"  
"A doctor will be along in just a few minutes to explain everything to you, sir."  
Vexen nodded as much as he could manage in his state. Carefully, he lifted up his right hand to tenderly touch the dull ache on his head. His fingers came into contact with a bandage.  
"Try not to touch it," The nurse said. "You have a nasty bump there."  
Vexen obediently let his good arm fall back to the bed. He felt a little restless, but with his leg almost comically suspended from the ceiling and the rest of his body in casts and plaster and bandages he couldn't afford to move.  
"Did anybody visit?"  
The nurse apologetically shook her head.  
"I don't know. But you have got a card."  
Vexen twisted his head to the windowsill and to his surprise a bright and colourful card with penguins of all things on the front was sitting cheerfully there. The nurse plucked it up and handed it to him. He inspected the front for a few moments like he was going to laugh at the silly penguin pun, then flipped it open. There was a short note about Vexen living dangerously and theories that he was secretly a spy - all preposterous; he was nothing more than unlucky - and a wish for speedy recovery, signed by everybody in his department at work.  
Vexen had never had a card from work before. It was a surreal experience. He reread it several times before almost reluctantly handing it back.  
"Can I make a call to my workplace?"  
"When you're feeling a bit better," The nurse said as she changed Vexen's IV feed. "Your employer has been contacted about extended leave from work."  
"I can't afford that," Vexen said automatically.  
"Unfortunately, your body can't afford to go back to work, either. Ah, here's the doctor."  
Vexen glanced up at the door to see a tall, thin man enter with two younger, uniformed men just out of teenagerhood that he assumed were students. He sighed a little, settling down. Problems would have to wait.

* * *

With Vexen gone, things simply stopped happening. Naminé hadn't noticed before but it seemed like Vexen had been if not the cause of at the centre of a great deal of friction and problems in the house. After all, it was Vexen who hated Marluxia so virulently, Vexen who was despised so by Larxene and Vexen who, in utter misery, allowed Naminé to get the better of herself by crawling into his bed. Without him, things were easy; Larxene grinned and cracked jokes and obscene profanities just like the sparky young woman that Naminé knew so well and Marluxia...  
Marluxia had been acting pensively as of late. More often than not these days, Naminé would walk in on him at a window watching the world pass by with a thoughtful expression on his face. He'd smile at her in recognition but didn't seem interested in conversation - but that was far short of being worrying even if it did seem a little unusual for the man. Besides, Larxene had had a change of heart while she was staying away and suddenly Naminé was caught up in the resurrection of a forgotten friendship that left her thoroughly exhausted. Larxene had always been one for mood swings, wild and unpredictable at the best of times - and now her mood was definitely something along the lines of running Naminé around in circles until she was ready to collapse on her older friend's lap in the evening in front of the telly.  
It was about a week in Vexen's absence that Naminé found herself really thinking about the thin man again. They were half watching some soppy romance on the television, Naminé doodling in her sketchpad and Larxene behind her on the back of the sofa idly braiding her hair.  
"Did Vexen really sleep with Marluxia?"  
Larxene's swift hands paused momentarily but the disturbance was brief; soon she was back to the rhythmic movement once more.  
"Who told you that?"  
"You did," Naminé said, rolling her eyes. "But you also told me that you hated my guts, so I wasn't sure if it was true or not."  
She was amazed at the evenness of her own voice. She'd been ignoring Larxene's hideous drunken accusations ever since the wiry woman spat them out, and she was sure that all the pain and anxiety would show in her voice.  
"Shit, was I drunk?"  
"Very."  
Larxene mulled this over for a few moments. She ran out of hair and teased three more thin strands of hair from Naminé's scalp, began to plait again.  
"But did they have sex?" Naminé pressed.  
Larxene shrugged.  
"Ages ago. A few months after Marluxia moved in, I think. It's not like he's been fucking Marluxia behind your back." She explained. "Well. Much."  
Naminé felt the blood drain from her face.  
"Much?"  
"There was this one time when Vexen was really, _really_ drunk. But Marluxia says that he kept moaning your name so it doesn't really count."  
There wasn't much that Naminé could really say to that. There wasn't really much she could do to believe it, either.  
"Oh."  
"Crazy, huh?"  
Larxene settled back against the wall, set again to plaiting. Something romantic was happening on screen but it was obvious that neither of the girls were concentrating on the sappy, clearly scripted lines. Naminé spent five futile minutes mulling over the inconceivable concept of Vexen mistaking Marluxia for her in bed; eventually she gave up and decided that a subject change and further distraction was in order.  
"You seem more mellow about this than before."  
Larxene shrugged and Naminé felt the movement in subtle shifts of the sofa's mass.  
"Going away for a week and fucking gorgeous guys gives one a more cheery outlook on life."  
"It's because Vexen's not here, isn't it."  
"What can I say." Larxene replied dismissively. "Lucky coincidence."  
"You don't need to worry about him," Naminé said, heart sinking as the words came out of her mouth. "I... I don't think he's going to be getting between us any more."  
Because it was true, wasn't it. Even if she'd blown things a little (a lot) out of proportion, Vexen was still not right in all the ways that he just could not return the care and love that Naminé gave him. Right?  
"I figured that when you damn near hospitalised him,"  
But there was still the guilt, because if it weren't for Naminé Vexen wouldn't be cracked up in pieces - and was it pity inside her, or true heartfelt emotion for the ageing man? There was just too much turmoil inside her for her to possibly understand how she felt. Discouraged, she tucked her knees beneath her chin and curled up tight, barely even concentrating on the screen any more.  
"He was just some guy," Larxene said dismissively, presumably in attempt to cheer her best friend up. But the words rang inside Naminé's head, filled her up so that her throat tightened uncomfortably and tears pressed at the corners of her eyes. She furiously blinked them away.  
"I wanted him to be special," She half whispered, half coughed. "He was- he was, I. I wanted him to be special."  
And she cried openly until Larxene slid down from the back of the sofa and held her close. She'd held out for so long, waiting for someone important, but none of her relationships had ever lasted long enough for that kind of intimacy - but when Vexen had arrived, she'd just jumped into it all without really thinking. And this was the price she had to pay: a festering, ugly curl of hideous emotions curdling inside her stomach. She wanted, so badly, to explain her actions or even just her feelings - but she couldn't get past the sickening lumps inside her for even a single word.  
And Larxene held her tight like she always had when boys turned sour. Naminé clung to her with a ferocity she didn't know she possessed. They were there for a long time, even when an ambulance drew up alongside the house and a haggard man hobbled up to the door. He took several minutes fumbling with his key outside, then clattered gracelessly into the hallway. Naminé watched him through the glass panels on the door as he struggled removing his coat with crutches and a sling with empty eyes. But when he leaned in through the doorway, she turned away.  
"I'm home,"  
"Go away."  
There was a pause; Naminé could not make herself look up to see Vexen's heartbroken expression. And then he was gone, laboriously tackling the stairs. After a few minutes of listening to the stairs creak under his heavy footfalls, the house was silent again. It was only then that Naminé pulled away from Larxene's shoulder.  
"Do you think I could even be friends with him?"  
"I don't think Vexen could be friends with anybody."  
For once, Naminé could not fault Larxene. It was true.

* * *

As soon as he was back in his room, Vexen crawled helplessly into bed and hid between the colourless sheets. He'd spent quite some time on medication in the hospital, and he was already missing the thoughtless stupor that it induced, because now he was thinking again and nothing good ever came from his thoughts.  
Firstly, he didn't know how much Naminé knew about him and Marluxia. Secondly, he didn't even know how much _he_ knew about his stance with the mysterious man. Thirdly she had not visited him in hospital even once in the duration of his stay.  
That meant things had to be over.  
Vexen, in lieu of something more cuddly or humanoid, tugged a pillow into his arms and closed himself around it. It didn't help; he just thought more of Naminé's warm, creamy skin and her soft breaths tumbling over one another as she slept. And the more he lay in silence, carefully ignoring the way his stomach growled, the more he could not comprehend just how much he _wanted_ her. It wasn't any kind of sexual desire but a desperate longing to just have her there in his arms or by his side, a perfect little fairy with an adorable smile that made him believe that maybe one day things would be okay.  
And the fact that it was not just his insufferable personality or laughable inexperience but _Marluxia_ who brought this most recent downfall stung all the more. It hurt more than his broken bones, his fading bruises and the dull itching of his casts. He lay in restless stillness until the faint murmur of the television downstairs was silenced and the house climbed sleepily into bed, body dead and mind wide awake. The longer he lay, staring at the hole in the ceiling which had been steadily crumbling wider since the roof collapsed, the worse it became. The room was cold, lifeless. He felt listlessly drained of all energy.  
Eventually when the sky was at its darkest, he left the bed, scrabbled in finding his crutches, and limped out into the landing. His leg, cast from knee to arch of his foot, felt bulky, a dead weight as he shifted clumsily down the stairs. The back door was locked, but the key was on the side so he opened it in the darkness and stepped out into a bitter night. There was nothing more than a faint breeze but it carried the taste of frost, refreshingly cold against Vexen's face. He made his way down to the bench at the end of the tamed garden and sat, watching the stars pass. It was with a certain nostalgic fondness that he plucked constellations from the tangle of bright pinpricks, remembering his fascination with the stars as a child. Then again when he was young, everything was captivating, from the chrysalis of a butterfly on his windowpane to the vast stretching oceans connecting their little island to the world. Things just didn't have the same lustre now. Stars were just giant spheres of burning gas, which was impressive but hardly exhilarating. Butterflies died in a week. And Vexen had only ever crossed the ocean once, when he went on a school trip to France as a boy. He'd found himself fascinated by the architecture of a Gothic building and became separated from the group, which resulted in three hours of wandering around Paris alone and missing their scheduled ferry home, and getting into a lot of trouble.  
Eventually, when his teeth started chattering, Vexen gave in to the cold and hobbled back inside, safely locking the door once more. He made himself a cup of decaffeinated coffee, which was an adequate enough distraction for ten minutes, then discovered that ascending stairs with broken limbs and a mug of hot liquids was next to impossible. He receded to the living room, instead. He flicked through a few TV channels but nothing was interesting, then inspected the DVD rack. Mostly chick flick or horror, and a few black and white classics that nobody would own up to buying. On the end, however, there was a small collection of video games - which was odd, because Vexen didn't think they owned a games console. He'd always wanted to be a gamer when he was a teen but his parents disproved of this idea even more than following a career in academia, and then lack of monetary funds had been an obstacle ever since. But there indeed was a console, and a sleek one at that, lying smugly amongst the usual electronics equipment. Vexen chose a game at random, found a controller, and ran around awkwardly with only a hand and a half in some futuristic city being attacked by miscellaneous enemies and usually running away. It wasn't until the coffee mug had nothing but granules left in the bottom that he admitted he wasn't any good at the game, and put it back as though nothing had ever happened. The journey upstairs was another trek again.  
He was about to return to his room and shuffle papers until he fell asleep when he noticed a faint light emanating from Naminé's room. He stood in the corridor for some time, dithering, but eventually his heart and need for settlement won out and he creaked over, hesitantly knocking on the door.  
"N-Naminé?"  
Naminé was at her desk, wrapped in her duvet and reading. Snjór was in her arms but the instant she saw him the bear tumbled from her arms and fell, smiling crookedly, to the floor.  
"You should be in bed," Vexen whispered uncertainly, any plans for conversation equally falling away. Naminé glanced between him and her book, then sighed a little.  
"Can't sleep," She said shortly. Vexen did his best attempt at a shrug without causing himself too much bodily harm.  
"Me either."  
But Naminé had turned back to her book and was reading with a grim determination.  
"Um," Vexen said. She ignored him. "I. I think we need to talk."  
"There's nothing to say," Naminé replied despondently, like Vexen didn't already know that and wasn't desperately trying to buy time.  
"Look, I'm- I'm sorry I didn't tell you. About Marluxia. I just-" He began. Naminé cut him off.  
"I don't want to talk about it."  
"I'm sorry for everything," Vexen continued anyway. "Really. I shouldn't have let things get so out of hand, and I'm sorry. It's not like I was ever good enough for you anyway, so," And he half shrugged, which sent pain cracking through his ribcage, "So I just want you to know that I'm really sorry and if there's anything I can do to, you- you know. Make it up to you."  
He abruptly ran out of words and stood in silence for a few moments. He half wanted to ask for forgiveness or maybe just a hug, to pretend that they could be together again; but this wasn't an exercise in getting Naminé back. He was just there to set the record straight.  
Naminé looked at him critically.  
"Are you crying?"  
Vexen automatically lifted his good hand to his eyes. He hadn't even registered, but teardrops were indeed rolling down his cheeks, sticking his hair to his face.  
"No," He said anyway, ducking his head in embarrassment.  
"Oh." Naminé said. She toyed a little with her bookmark as Vexen scrabbled for more worse to eke past his contracting throat.  
"So I suppose this is goodbye."  
Naminé glanced up.  
"Liar," She said. "You are crying."  
"Of course I'm crying," Vexen snapped before he could stop himself. "You're the closest thing I've got to a friend, Naminé. It's kind of difficult to face up to the thought of losing you."  
Slowly, Naminé stood, her duvet making fat ripples around her body. She became a marshmallow beneath it, flower speckled, and Vexen wanted to hold her close to his chest until she fell into a blissful sleep.  
"What about Marluxia?"  
"I hate him," Vexen said truthfully. "He-"  
"Then why did you sleep with him?"  
Vexen's mind froze in fitful agony and he remembered suddenly who he was and what he'd suffered and who had started the perpetual motion that had been steadily ruining his life ever since. And the shame, the lies and blackmail and painful secrets.  
"He doesn't care about me," He eventually settled on saying subversively. "He just has a fetish for blondes."  
"Blondes," Naminé echoed in a slightly strangled voice. "Oh God, Vexen, you-"  
"I'm going to go to bed now," Vexen quickly interrupted, unable to face telling Naminé the truth. "And so should you."  
"Vexen!"  
He turned away and closed the door with a methodical click. He would have hurried into his room but with crutches it was impossible to hurry anywhere, so he wasn't even halfway across the corridor when Naminé caught his right hand and held it tight.  
"This is where it all started, isn't it. With him."  
Vexen braced himself for whatever Naminé speculated next. Somehow it was easier to pretend that he'd wanted Marluxia's terrifying presence in his bed and abrasive kisses against his skin than admit what really happened. Maybe if he was lucky, he could get away with her believing a twisted version of events that could leave Vexen's skeletons safely intact under the stairs.  
"It's hard to think anything of yourself when the only person who would willingly fuck you is only interested because of your hair colour."  
"He thinks you're gorgeous," Naminé said, somewhere in another universe that didn't make sense. Vexen shook his head.  
"It's because I'm blonde. He took what he wanted and he left me with nothing."  
"Vexen..."  
Vexen forced himself to tear away from Naminé's grasp.  
"I need to get some sleep."  
"Your room's freezing," Naminé said. It was a tone of voice that Vexen both recognised and was unfamiliar with. In some kind of awkward, three point turn, he twisted to face her.  
"I thought that-"  
"I thought so, too."  
"We can't. You're too young, and-"  
"We already _did_," Naminé protested, and Vexen surprised himself by catching the look in her eye that said she didn't know what she was supposed to do but she knew what she wanted to.  
"We can't be together," He said anyway, although he wasn't sure why because he would share a bed with Naminé and cuddle her like a warm, breathing teddy bear in a heartbeat.  
"Not even as friends?"  
"Sharing a bed?" Vexen asked incredulously. Naminé clicked her fingers. She was blushing a little, he noticed for the first time.  
"Larxene has a word for that. What is it."  
"Friends with benefits?"  
"That's the one."  
"I don't think that's-" Vexen began, and once again was interrupted.  
"You can say yes, you know," Naminé said in a small, shy voice. "Nobody's going to hold it against you. Otherwise I feel like you don't want to be friends with me and then I feel stupid."  
Vexen pinched the bridge of his nose.  
"I don't know what I want," He admitted. "And I don't know what you want. God. I'm awful at this."  
To his surprise, Naminé laughed a little.  
"I mean it," He persisted. "I can't even handle normal social situations, let alone. This."  
"Would a session of Q&A help?"  
Vexen felt half ridiculous, half relieved, as Naminé led him into her room. It was a comfortable, sleepy kind of warm inside; it made Vexen's body remember that it was some ungodly hour in the morning and he needed sleep. But Naminé was looking at him seriously as she sat him down; for a moment Vexen honestly thought she was going to start asking questions. But instead, she wrung her hands together a little and sighed.  
"Vexen, you know we can't be _together_."  
Vexen had realised that some days ago, lying in plaster in a hospital room.  
"Yeah, I know."  
"And," She sighed again, haltingly considering her next words, "Look, I don't really know how to say this, but... you know it was my first time,"  
Vexen realised what she was talking about.  
"Y-yeah."  
"Well, it was something I held out on for a long time. I really wanted it to be with someone special, and..." She trailed off, sniffing miserably. Vexen, however awkwardly, pulled her into something resembling a hug.  
"I'm sorry."  
Naminé violently shook her head until her hair swung around her cheeks.  
"No. It wasn't even _you_, and it was so... I just felt like... I don't know. I just don't want to look back on it in a few years' time and think that, well, you were just some guy."  
She twisted, burying her face in Vexen's neck. He tentatively reached up and stroked his good hand through her hair, whispering what he hoped were comforting sounds into her ear.  
"I'm sorry," He said eventually, once her sobs had receded. "I don't really know what to do."  
"It's my fault anyway," Naminé said, bubbles in her voice. "I mean, we're not even _close_. I'm such an idiot..."  
"You're not," was Vexen's instant response. She looked at him disbelievingly. "Maybe... maybe we could just be friends?" He didn't dare tag _'with benefits'_ onto the end. "I mean, that way it's not like we just had a fling and just disappeared from each other's lives, right?"  
Naminé closed her eyes and rested her cheek against Vexen's chest. Her heat seeped through his still chilly skin, warming him inside.  
"That would be nice."  
Vexen ignored the dull ache of his dead bones as he leaned back to gently slide Naminé into her bed.  
"And that means there's no pressure to... no pressure on either of us, either," He explained as he tucked her in. She smiled a little, at _him_, and friendship seemed like more than enough as she closed her eyes and settled down into the bedding.  
"Sleep well."  
He collected his crutches and made his way to the door, flicking the light switch as he went.  
"Aren't you going to join me?" Naminé's voice asked from the darkness. Hand halfway up to the door handle, Vexen paused.  
"I shouldn't."  
"Do you want to?"  
His room was cold and empty and a long way away. Naminé was warm and cuddly. Naminé was _here_.  
"Yes."  
He found the bed by blind touch, was helped by Naminé's slender fingers to climb in. She lay in the curves of his body, better than any inanimate companion, breathing deep and close. Their breaths mingling above them, they slept comfortably.


	16. 15 Chalk and Cheese

It was late on Friday afternoon, when Vexen had gone to bed early after a suffering bad coughing fit, that Marluxia turned from watching the sleet slide despondently down the hall window to stare at Naminé for two, three, four seconds then pulled her into a deep, wordless, passionate kiss.  
The sheer shock threw the poor girl off for a few moments; Marluxia had been so pensively distant lately but suddenly he was _there_ again, moving against her lips with some strange energy that could almost be described as hunger. There was no explanation, just like the first time the night after he arrived; there was only the taste of warm, natural life as Marluxia pushed the kiss further into her, gently yet so firmly that she could not resist.  
When he finally pulled away, she stumbled back a few paces, stuttering through her red face.  
"M... M-Marluxia."  
"Naminé," He said so softly, her name just rolling away from the lips he had just used to break her every defence. He outstretched his hand for her, a god of unearthly, statuesque perfection. His eyes, his bottomless eyes, dragged Naminé in as though she had been bewitched by his gaze. It was not piercing, unlike Larxene's intense glare; the sharpness was in some way diffused by the deep, rich blue of his irises. "Come."  
The command came out as a half-whisper, and drunkenly Naminé stumbled, hand in hand with the mysterious man, into his room. He led her to the bed, which sank half a foot when she sat without even the slightest creak of springs. He didn't join her, instead idly thumbing the spines of a small collection of books on a shelf.  
"I believe," He murmured after a few moments, "That we have a few things to discuss."  
There was a curious tone to his voice; it was light yet serious, so simple yet so unreadable. Naminé sat up straight, of her spine's own accord.  
"Yes?  
Marluxia paused at a small marble statue, a bird rising from ashes into graceful flight. When he turned, he spoke.  
"Vexen."  
"We're just friends," Naminé said quickly. Marluxia caught her eye in a way that was neither forgiving nor explicitly cold.  
"There is more to you than that."  
"We sorted everything out," Naminé persisted. "We're just going to be friends from now on, that way there's no-"  
To her surprise, Marluxia interrupted her with a short laugh. He seemed genuinely amused by this, although why Naminé could not fathom.  
"There's more to you than just friendship," He said again, sliding from the sculpture on the shelf. "There's so much more..."  
"I don't understand," Naminé admitted as he sat beside her. Marluxia simply smiled unreadably, saying nothing. For a few minutes, they sat in silence, immersed in their own thoughts.  
"I suppose he asked you not to tell me," Naminé mumbled after a while. Marluxia glanced at her, and she was almost certain that she caught a glimpse of melancholy sadness in his eyes; but then as soon as it had come, he had hidden himself again.  
"He will tell you the full truth when he is ready."  
Naminé could tell that Marluxia didn't feel like it was a subject that was his to discuss. Vexen had been distraught when he spoke of his involvement with Marluxia before (and he hadn't mentioned it since, seemingly on purpose); there had to be some kind of emotional trauma surrounding their relationship, if it could be called that, that neither of them wanted called into question. Some kind of misgiving, perhaps? Regret, maybe, or-? Naminé had no way of knowing.  
"Alright," She agreed eventually. Again, there was no conversation. Naminé sat if not stiffly in perfect stillness, Marluxia's presence suffocating her into humming, tight nerves.  
"Look at me, Naminé."  
Dutifully, Naminé twisted her body a little to face Marluxia.  
"Yes?"  
He caught her cheek with the palm of his hand and held her tenderly. He was still smiling a little, but if there was any emotion in his bottomless eyes, Naminé couldn't tell what it was.  
"You're beautiful," Marluxia murmured, his voice barely above a rich whisper. Naminé felt her heart begin to flutter uncontrollably, a hummingbird trapped helplessly inside her ribs.  
"I'm not," She insisted automatically. How could someone as perfect as Marluxia ever even consider looking at her? She was plain. A plain, round face with plain, pale skin. Plain blue eyes, plain blonde hair. A plain petite body, a plain timid personality. Her only talent was art, and even that was only when anybody bothered to look. Not even Larxene, her best friend, took much interest in her life and affairs, why would _Marluxia_ of all charismatic, stunning, unreal people choose to notice her?  
"You are, Naminé," Marluxia said again, so softly like feathers falling on her ears. "Don't let anyone tell you you're not."  
Nobody had ever told Naminé she wasn't pretty. They had just never told her that she was. She didn't really know how to articulate this, however, and Marluxia sensed her hesitation. He took her shoulders in his hands and lowered her down into the pillows, leaning close to watch her through hazy, intimate eyes.  
"Let me show you."  
And he searched her eyes for a few moments but apparently found nothing; without another word he bent down and kissed her. His lips were so unlike Vexen's that the contrast was startling even now, with one hand cupping her neck and the other reaching the first curve of a small breast.  
Naminé felt her toes curl and her body jolt, and suddenly she realised that even is she wanted to, she could not have denied Marluxia's advances. His warmth was solid and reassuring, his deep kisses luxurious. He held her close to his body as his smooth hands caressed her skin, hoisting her up onto his lap to suck at her neck. She felt herself gasping, but couldn't find the discipline to stop herself, even when he slipped her shirt from her shoulders. It landed in a crumpled heap on the bed next to his and suddenly their skin was burning together, pressed close with a hand flush in the small of her back.  
Naminé's senses seemed to have magnified in the lazy heat of Marluxia's room. She felt every one of the man's fingers weave across her back, leaving burning trails that resonated throughout her body and the kisses were even stronger, knocking the breath from her lungs as he trailed down her breastbone. And her shaking hands found his shoulders, his shoulder blades, fingertips pressing helplessly against his skin. Unblemished, every inch of it, like a perfect marble statue: except the thread of a scar snaking across the back of his neck behind his long hair. Naminé felt it before she brushed his strangely pink locks aside; it was cast through the baby hairs on the back of his neck, a ruler straight line perhaps two inches in length.  
"Where did you get that?"  
But Marluxia was sliding his tongue over the curve of her stomach, his hands against her thighs, and this seemed to distract him too much for words. Naminé gasped at his touch as he found her hips, crumpling the pleats of her skirt. Vexen had fumbled with his eyes tightly closed, terrified, but Marluxia had the strength to raise her up on unsteady legs, to see her naked and as she truly was, to kiss her lips and her stomach and between her legs.  
She might have squealed. She might have clenched her fists tightly in Marluxia's hair. She might have drawn blood biting on her lip, might have shuddered against him, might have collapsed into his chest, gasping for breath. It was all a blur until she found herself splayed on the pillows again, Marluxia gracing her with an absent smile.  
She found movement in her shaking arms, held his cheeks. Vexen disappeared from her mind. Larxene melted away; everything just faded into insignificance when Marluxia looked at her with those bottomless eyes at her most vulnerable like she was truly beautiful. His full attention was on her and he was touching her in ways that made her spine tingle, and that was all that mattered.  
She hadn't quite realised that Marluxia was naked until her bare legs brushed his. She didn't know why (but was there any sense to be found here, truly?), but she reached up to touch the taut muscles of his stomach, to follow down the trail of fine brown hair. For a moment, they seemed at an impasse, but then Marluxia chuckled a little and caught her errant hand in his. His other, lying at the crease between Naminé's leg and her stomach, slid inwards to find her where his tongue had explored just minutes before.  
Between the waves of pleasure, a distant thought occurred to Naminé in the back of her brain. It was barely half an instinct, but it refused to go away until she gathered the self control to swallow thickly and speak.  
"S-Shouldn't we be using a condom?"  
Marluxia smiled, but not with his eyes.  
"That won't be necessary."  
"But," Naminé said, voice foggy, "I don't want to get pregnant."  
Suddenly Marluxia's lips were by her ear.  
"Relax," He said softly to her, "You don't need to worry."  
"I'm not on the pill or anything," Naminé whispered back, even as Marluxia twisted his fingers just so and sent spasms coursing through her legs. "I- I don't want to take the chance-"  
"Naminé," Marluxia interrupted. "Trust me."  
Naminé twisted her head to face him. His fringe hung in his eyes but even so she could still see the unmistakeable sadness that lay deep beneath those azure irises. He must have known this; he jerked sharply away and instead kissed her neck. So Naminé forced herself to relax and trust his judgement.  
He played on affectionate touches for a few more minutes until the sparks between them became almost unbearable and there it was, the aching completion of Marluxia's blazing presence above her and around her and in her. She didn't know how loud her vocalisations were, only that her mouth was open in some kind of impulsive gesture of appreciation and submission; she could judge her actions only through what she felt; Marluxia's skin beneath her palm, Marluxia's fingertips around her hips to draw her closer still. Marluxia, pressing harder and moving faster, catching her in helpless arousal and supplying her with both a desperate need and a perfect release; there was no other way to describe it: Marluxia was perfect.  
He couldn't have coaxed her into climax quickly enough; by the time orgasm flooded her systems Naminé had already been filled with a burning desire for the flushing heat that he finally gave her. Marluxia let her down slowly, close by as she stretched her tense muscles out on the bed sheet. They lay in silence for a few minutes, Marluxia breathing softly into the crook of her neck. His intakes weren't quite stable; even he seemed a little flushed by their encounter.  
Naminé absent mindedly drew her fingers through the layers of his hair. He huffed a little at her, but it was half hearted if unappreciative at all. He seemed satisfied.  
Eventually it was Naminé who spoke.  
"Marluxia?"  
"Hrm."  
"You said- when you said I didn't need to worry about..."  
She trailed off. Marluxia had lifted his head a little, as though disturbed from sleepy half-dreams.  
"Naminé," He murmured, hesitating momentarily, "I couldn't impregnate you even if I wanted to."  
Naminé's mouth had gone strangely dry.  
"You... You're-?"  
Marluxia rolled away from her, kissed her forehead once and swept from the bed.  
"Sterile."  
He pulled an airy dressing gown around his body, and left the room. He did not, she noted, meet her eye.  
Naminé lay still, her limbs dozing, for a few minutes, listening only to the rush of blood inside her head. _Sterile_. The last few exchanges of their conversation ran on a malfunctioning reel inside her head, refusing to leave her be.  
Eventually she, too, stood from the bed. She found a box of tissues to wipe herself down a little before pulling her clothes back on. She poked her head through the door, just in case, before slipping out, to make sure that nobody was around - but Vexen was in bed and Larxene had left the house a few hours ago. She checked the bathroom first, and found it steaming but empty: so she descended the stairs and peered into the kitchen.  
"Marluxia?"  
Marluxia was at the kettle, brewing what looked like a mug of hot chocolate. He glanced up at her briefly as she slipped in, turning the light on as she passed the switch. It was only five o'clock or so, but the night had already drawn in and inked everything black. Under the warm, iridescent light bulb Marluxia was softened, an artistic painting hanging in a gallery far away from real life.  
"I'm sorry," Naminé said, shuffling over to Marluxia's side and staring longingly at the hot chocolate. "I didn't realise."  
Marluxia pushed the beverage towards her, pulling a pot of marshmallows from the shelf and popping a handful in. They melted into a gloop across the rim of the mug.  
"It doesn't bother me any more," He said kindly as Naminé slurped on a teaspoonful of hot chocolate. She wriggled uncomfortably anyway.  
"I didn't mean to pry."  
"No," Marluxia agreed thoughtfully. Naminé found herself reaching for his hand below the counter.  
"It just made me realise," She continued blindly, "I don't know anything about you."  
To her surprise, Marluxia laughed a little.  
"I prefer not to dwell on the past," He said idly, "After all, it's the present that matters."  
"But the past is what makes us who we are," Naminé replied without thinking, remembering the years at school she spent unnoticed for her talents by her teachers, the quiet encouragement from her parents that kept her strong to her dreams. Larxene's exuberant personality and peer pressure getting her into trouble not an inconsiderable number of times: it was undeniable that Naminé, now a young woman, was herself because of the people who had shaped her childhood. And what about Vexen? It was obvious from the way he wrung his hands, took almost everything as a personal offence and stood with a stooped back that he'd always been an outcast, bullied when he was young.  
Marluxia, too, seemed to consider this at length.  
"Perhaps," He said, eventually.  
"Think about Vexen," Naminé persisted. "About a year ago, something traumatic happened to him and I'm sure of it. He hasn't been right since he lost his job, since-" She realised suddenly that she was about to say _since you moved in_, and stopped herself. "But anyway, that's all in the past but it's still having an effect on who he is."  
Marluxia stood in curious stillness for a long time, watching the wind bluster the last of the crumpled leaves from the trees outside. All that was clearly visible lay beneath the old lamps illuminating the garden. Winter was drawing in.  
"Vexen will recover."  
"I hope so," Naminé agreed. Marluxia glanced at her again, fleetingly.  
"After all," He continued, "All he needs is security." Marluxia paused to replace the milk and the marshmallows before speaking again. "He's a creature of habit and always will be. Things that are unusual or unexpected intimidate him."  
Naminé was surprised to realise that Marluxia was right.  
"Oh." She said. "You're really perceptive..."  
"One learns to be good at reading people," Marluxia clipped dismissively. "Come on; there's a bath waiting for you upstairs."  
He led her back up and into the bathroom, where she stripped, red-faced, and sank deep into the bubbles. Marluxia watched her with soft eyes as she toyed with her wet hair.  
"Do you really think I'm pretty?"  
Naminé couldn't help it; she had to hear confirmation, one more time.  
"Of course," Marluxia said without hesitation. Naminé blushed and busied herself with creating craters in the bubbles. Eventually when she had been pruned enough, Marluxia helped her out of the bath and towelled her down, offering little compliments as he did so. He seemed to enjoy this maybe a little too much, but she easily forgave him.  
"You have really nice hair," He said as the drying process became something of a shoulder massage. Naminé giggled a little.  
"Thank you."  
Marluxia smiled to himself, wrapping the towel around Naminé's body and steering her out into the corridor, then into his room. She couldn't resist, even if she'd wanted to; he simply swept her along with no room for thought or rebellion.  
"Have you ever curled it?"  
Naminé, recalling fond memories, laughed again.  
"Larxene tried once. She burned my ear, but it was fun anyway. And you know whose springy bits of hair she has?" Naminé waved her hands in the air a little to explain the antennae-like protrusions to Larxene's signature hairstyle. Her towel slipped dangerously low over her small breasts as she did but Marluxia was on hand, laughing also, to pull it back.  
"Go on."  
"Well, they used to hang forwards on her head, like this," Naminé continued, this time making sure to keep her elbows stamped to her sides, "But then I was messing around with the straighteners and we got them to stick up. She's had it like that ever since. She even grew those bits long."  
Marluxia had sat her back on the bed, and was rummaging in a drawer for a hair dryer. The previous awkward atmosphere seemed to have dissipated; for that, Naminé was glad - but then Marluxia did seem to possess an uncanny knack for manipulating the conversation into any direction or form he desired.  
"It suits her," He said as he returned with the dryer, a smaller towel and a comb. "Hold this for a minute."  
He gave Naminé the towel, and it fell fluffily soft into her hands. She pressed her face into it; it had that same scent that hung around Marluxia, the curious and enticing mix of fresh flowers and cut grass. She breathed deeply into it, calmed, as Marluxia combed through her hair then began, with a luxurious gentleness, to dry it. He seemed to enjoy kneading Naminé's scalp and threading his fingers through her hair as it transformed from being slick and heavy against her head to silkily soft, warmed by the dryer.  
"Larxene thinks you have a fetish for hair," She said without thinking as he took the towel from her and continued his work. He seemed to be in a good mood, because he laughed.  
"If I had a fetish, sweetheart, I would be masturbating right now."  
Naminé paused awkwardly.  
"Oh."  
"I simply appreciate its colour and texture," Marluxia continued seamlessly. "Sexual gratification has little to do with it."  
"I did think she was being stupid," Naminé said earnestly. "I mean... well, it would just be silly, wouldn't it?"  
Marluxia pressed his nose to the back of Naminé's head, and she could feel him deeply inhale.  
"I don't know. We all have our little quirks. Wouldn't you agree?"  
Naminé shrugged. She wasn't sure either.  
It took maybe an hour, and the click of the front door heralding Larxene's return, for Marluxia to finish drying Naminé's hair, then steam it into tight, springy curls. Her locks, usually drifting just below her shoulders, now bounced around her ears. She also couldn't stop patting it.  
"This is so silly. I'm going to have to go to bed in a few hours."  
"I'll curl it again for you in the morning, if you like."  
Naminé giggled at the offer, turning her head this way and that in Marluxia's mirror.  
"Why do you have curlers anyway?"  
"Just in case an adorable little girl finds herself in my room in need of pampering," Marluxia replied smoothly. Naminé wasn't sure she liked being called a little girl, but she took the comment lightly anyway.  
"I have to show Larxene this..."  
"You might want to put some clothes on first."  
Naminé had completely forgotten she was naked beneath her towel. Blushing, she hurried over to the bed to collect her clothes before remembering in a flurry that they were in the bathroom. But Marluxia, gone and returning in an instant, gave her a pair of her pyjamas instead. Face still flushed red, she dressed in front of Marluxia; he watched her until she'd done up the last button on her shirt with silent, smiling eyes.  
"I'll be back," She promised, adjusting her hair one last time before she made for the door. But Marluxia shook his head.  
"You sleep where you want."  
Naminé wasn't sure if it was okay to have sex with somebody and not even spend the night with them, but she nodded anyway before slipping out. She wondered vaguely if Vexen was awake, but a quick peek into his room revealed that he'd probably been dead to the world for some time. Naminé fluffed his pillow and rearranged his limbs; it looked like he'd crawled into bed and fallen asleep before he could even get comfortable.  
She wasn't sure why, but it felt right to kiss his forehead before moving on. He mumbled something incoherent at the contact, leaning into Naminé's warm cheek.  
Even when sleeping he seemed to need her... Naminé pulled away momentarily but only to wrap her arms so tentatively around Vexen's sleeping form and hold him close. He murmured again, and a few moments later he had laid one clumsy hand against Naminé's side. Naminé leaned back to see Vexen squinting sleepily at her, the tiniest of smiles on his lips.  
"You look like a princess," He said disjointedly, shifting around a little. Naminé found herself blushing, because she might have been nineteen but it was still every little girl's dream to be a beautiful princess.  
"Thanks. Now go back to sleep."  
"I'm not dreaming?"  
Naminé chuckled a little.  
"You just woke up."  
"Nice thing to wake up to," Vexen mumbled contentedly. Then he hiccoughed, rolled over and was promptly snoring softly again. Naminé watched his steady breaths rise and fall in the gloom for a few minutes, wondering how she had managed to trick herself into thinking that all she wanted Vexen to be was a friend. He was so beautifully _human_, sleeping with his lips slightly parted, his limbs still cast and his complexion pale. But then Naminé remembered Marluxia's unreal perfection, the power he had to send her into a frenzy... No two people could be more different than Vexen and Marluxia; how could she possibly choose between them?  
Experimentally, Naminé climbed onto the bed and saddled Vexen, catching his sleeping mouth in some strange, open kiss. When he slept on, she found herself briefly sucking at his bottom lip before, feeling ridiculous, she pulled away and ran from the room.


	17. 16 Dreaming of Andromeda

Larxene was in the sitting room, killing things. She hadn't had much time - or money - to play video games recently, but now she needed some good old massacre therapy. Work was hard, home life possibly even worse.  
She'd just reached a save point when Naminé squeezed in past through barely-open door. She looked miserable. And seeing Larxene there, she wobbled over to the older woman, fell onto the sofa and began to cry.  
Larxene paused the game and wrapped her arms around Naminé until the girl's sobs were reduced to just saturnine sniffs.  
"What's up?"  
Naminé took her time in answering.  
"I... I can't believe that I... but then... and he was so- b-but Vexen, Larxene, he was just... and I couldn't, I couldn't not... and I just don't know, and, and, oh, Larxene, does it make me a bad person?"  
Larxene put two and two together.  
"So Marluxia finally got to you, then."  
Naminé hiccoughed miserably, nodding. Larxene, almost hoping that it wouldn't be true - as if _Vexen_ wasn't bad enough - growled in the back of her throat, forcing her hands not to ball into tight fists.  
"He's nothing more than a shallow bastard."  
Naminé hung her head, shuffling uncomfortably.  
"B-but he's so nice."  
"He's selfish-"  
"-so polite-"  
"-egotistical-"  
"-gentle-"  
"-_fake_."  
Finally, Naminé glanced up from her delusional dreams of Marluxia actually being the person he pretended to be. She didn't say anything, however; at least not before Larxene, damn near wanting to slap Naminé in her pretty little tear-ridden face, could continue.  
"Did you really think Marluxia's as chivalrous as he makes himself out to be? It's just an act that he puts on to catch people like you who are too _delusional_ to realise that all he cares about is himself."  
Naminé took to tormenting the hem of her pyjama shirt: but if her expression was anything to go by, what the fabric suffered was nothing compared to her emotional pain.  
"Y-you could have said that _before_ I..."  
She couldn't even say it. Sex. Such a simple three letter word. All of it so thoughtless, hardly worth the angst and drama.  
"I _tried_." Larxene spat.  
"He can't be that bad if you sleep with him all the time!" Naminé suddenly exclaimed. When Larxene caught her eye, there was a fierceness to the depths of Naminé's pupils that Larxene had not expected; the fabric of her pyjama shirt was positively warped where she'd pulled on it.  
"I don't sleep with him because he's nice," Larxene snapped. "I sleep with him because he's good in bed. Because we're _sluts_."  
Naminé seemed to deflate.  
"Yeah," She said resentfully. "You always were more interested in boys than me."  
While Larxene collected up the pieces of her shattered ego, Naminé carefully stood.  
"Maybe that's why I let Marluxia have sex with me. Maybe that's why I like Vexen. Because unlike you, they actually notice me. Marluxia always knows how to cheer me up. And Vexen thinks I'm the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to him."  
She made for the door: dumbstruck, Larxene could do nothing more than stare.  
"I don't know," She said finally, as though eager to rub salt onto Larxene's smarting wounds, "Maybe I just like being appreciated every once in a while."  
"But Marluxia's a downright liar!" Larxene finally exclaimed, just before Naminé slipped away. "And Vexen's so fucking _desperate_ that he'd fuck anyone who looked at him twice!"  
The younger woman, tears streaming down her beautiful, heart shaped face, paused in the door's rotting wooden frame. She studied Larxene coldly for a few seconds, which almost made her squirm, before finally turning away - which was possibly even worse.  
"No," She said at length; "Vexen is more of a friend than you ever were."  
Larxene's insides clenched unpleasantly, suffocating her. The agony, the injustice, the sheer _gall_ of Naminé to insinuate that somehow her decade of love, trustworthiness and support was worth less than a spineless, lifeless, tactless geek with whom Naminé had barely conversed until a few months ago, burned inside her.  
"Who's always been there for you?" She yelled, standing abruptly. "Who's always been there to pick you back off the ground every time your boyfriends broke your heart?"  
Somehow, the fact that Naminé was perfectly still and aside from her pouring tears perfectly calm made everything all the worse.  
"Who always led them astray?"  
The question, so simple, so emotionless, threw Larxene for a moment. But blistering with rage and indignity her pride would not let her back down; she changed tack instead, continuing to scream.  
"Vexen just wants to get into your fucking _pants_, Naminé!"  
Again, a flat - and slightly condemning - tone.  
"And you don't?"  
This time Larxene had no back up, no plan B. She staggered backwards a little as though physically struck, face purpling as she spat incoherent syllables and shook with mortified fury. Naminé also stepped backwards, into the hallway, looking at her feet.  
"It took me a while to realise," Naminé continued, ever so quietly that Larxene was forced to shut up and listen to hear her. "You weren't the slightest bit interested in Vexen until he started talking to me. He was just some guy who lived in our house and paid us money from time to time, but you never _hated_ him. We laughed about it. Thought he was a bit of a joke. But ever since we've been friends you've been acting like he's the son of the devil, or something, like he's the worst person imaginable and he's _not_. He's just some guy, for God's sake. I probably wouldn't even have slept with him if you hadn't made such a Goddamn fuss about it."  
Larxene's blood had suddenly become unpleasantly cold.  
"And he's not the only one, is he?"  
"I-"  
"Did you think I was never going to notice?" Naminé asked, still in her blank, lifeless tone. Like she hadn't the energy left to be angry and all she could summon was emptiness. "Roxas never did tell me who said all those horrible things about me..."  
"But-"  
"And Riku, of course he wrote to me every week when he was in Berlin. The letters just never reached me, did they?"  
"That's because-"  
"And _Sora_-"  
Larxene could take it no more.  
"_Shut up_!"  
Naminé fell duly silent - but only for a few seconds.  
"Vexen wasn't even a threat," She said quietly.  
"I'm trying to protect you!" Larxene exclaimed before she could stop herself.  
"From what?" Naminé queried accusingly, finally looking up. Her angelic blue eyes were burning. "Having fun? Being happy? Being _loved_?"  
"They would have broken your heart anyway-" Larxene began, but Naminé interrupted with a scream.  
"_That doesn't make it alright for you to break it first!_"  
She retreated quickly from the doorway as though somehow the awful emotions she had released would simply linger there and leave her blissfully alone.  
"I never want to talk to you again," She said, voice clogged with tears. "Just go away. You're not my friend any more. You never were."  
And she began to ascend the stairs, one at a time as though heavy robes were trailing behind her, memories holding her back.  
"Wait," Larxene said desperately, rushing into the hallway. She hadn't realised how tight her own throat had become until she tried to speak. But Naminé didn't stop. "Wait, you can't-!"  
"Can't what?" Naminé whispered contemptuously. "Live my own life?"  
"You didn't even want Marluxia to fuck you!"  
Larxene knew full well she was digging herself deeper: but she couldn't strangle the anguish, swallow her pride and stop letting the horrible, hateful anger that had spent so long coagulating in her stomach rushing out of her mouth.  
Finally, Naminé paused, her hand gripping the banister so tightly that Larxene was sure the ageing wood would give way.  
"He's very nice, _actually_."  
Larxene narrowed her eyes in disbelief. Not just at Naminé - at everything; at Vexen's sudden about-face in personality, at Marluxia's damn near psychopathic pursuit of sexual gratification, at how in less than a year she could possibly have lost the one girl who had truly been her best friend and more - to an unattractive recluse and a filthy slut. At how without another word Naminé left her to her own agony, slipping as though to torture her further into Vexen's room. At her own inability to just apologise, to her own terrible weakness revealed as she began to cry.  
Larxene did not cry often; unlike Naminé she tended to keep her insecurities to herself: she didn't need a shoulder to sob on like her younger best friend- _former_ best friend. She neither looked for, wanted nor needed emotional support, and for the most part felt neither doubt nor remorse for her actions. Naminé... seemed to be her exception.  
Unable to stay in the house for a second longer, Larxene grabbed Marluxia's car keys from the dresser and, pausing briefly to pull on her shoes and grab her bag, left with a discrete click of the front door. She drove, down emptying night motorways, until the landscape was unfamiliar and thoughts of Naminé were far away.

* * *

Naminé barely hesitated before sliding through Vexen's bedroom door and into comforting, real darkness. Over by the bed, Vexen was hiccoughing a little in his sleep; Naminé cried silently for a moment before stepping uncertainly over and climbing in around the older man's sleeping form, hoping not to rouse him.  
It seemed preposterous these days that she could possibly sleep alone. Her own room, cluttered with trappings and belongings, seemed empty without Vexen's uneven weight against her. She wanted to sleep quickly without disturbing Vexen, but despite her best interests, Vexen stirred, groaning in half-awakeness as his brain tried to fathom where he was and what was happening.  
"Naminé?"  
Naminé sniffed and nodded against Vexen's back, but said nothing. She didn't trust her voice not to betray how weak she felt. But even so, Vexen managed to twig something was seriously wrong and rolled over to trap Naminé in his arms. His slender limbs, the rough textiles of his casts and the imperfect texture of his broken skin was reassuringly real.  
"What's wrong?"  
Naminé took a few useless moments to collect herself: still, when she spoke her throat tightened and bubbled, mangling her words. She told Vexen everything, how Marluxia had swept her off her feet in the hallways just a few hours ago (Vexen's fingertips clenched unmistakeably against her then; Naminé would have been upset by this at any other moment, but right now she felt impossibly glad that someone cared about her enough to be angry for her), how she'd stumbled out of the experience in confusion and worry, how she didn't know what (or who) she wanted - and her argument with Larxene.  
"It wasn't just a little row," She finished miserably. "It was one of those really bad arguments. The ones that ruin everything. She said all these horrible things about you, and then I said all these horrible things about _her_..." And she needed a few more minutes to compose herself. "And I said I never wanted to see her again."  
Vexen didn't speak for some time after she was done. He was probably torn with indecision, between keeping Larxene away from Naminé - which she was sure he would want - and attempting to promise her that everything would be okay.  
"I think it's up to her," He said eventually, shifting his weight around a little. Naminé clung to his chest, even when the front of his shirt was soaked through with tears. "I mean, this is her fault, after all. You have every right to be upset." Vexen paused again, breathing deeply as though what he wanted to say next was going to be very difficult for him, "But if she apologises I think you should try to forgive her."  
"She's been doing this for years," Naminé intoned dully. "Breaking me apart from people I love."  
"But I don't think she's doing it out of spite," Vexen argued, sounding distinctly surprised at himself. "She's just, well. It's because she loves you."  
Naminé had already suspected that, ever since the night Larxene had drunkenly screamed all those hateful things in her face, although she had admittedly been shirking around the subject: hearing Vexen say it so bluntly, so _truthfully_... it made her stomach curl strangely. Larxene. Loving her. Loving her in ways deeper than sing-song voices at the ends of conversations, different than just best friends... it all made sense now. But it still felt odd, and more than that it _hurt_.  
"It's no excuse," She said blandly, relaxing again in Vexen's embrace. "Just because she-" Naminé faltered slightly- "loves me, that's no excuse for acting so... so stupidly."  
"I don't know," Vexen said thoughtfully, "Some people do some very stupid things when they're in love."  
"Like what?" Naminé asked before she could stop herself. Vexen coughed pointedly, gesturing to his plastered limbs and bandaged chest. "But that's different, that was-"  
Naminé stopped very suddenly, feeling foolish.  
"Just because I never have the guts to say it doesn't mean..." Vexen began, but he equally awkwardly trailed away into silence. Then, coughing again, he rather unsubtly changed the subject. "Obviously you two are very close, so-"  
"_Were_," Naminé corrected automatically, her mind still very much on Vexen's words.  
"Well, I suppose so, but-"  
"We've hardly talked in months. She's so preoccupied with being furious at you that she hasn't left any time for me."  
"M-maybe she just needs time to, you know. Get over herself, to put it bluntly."  
Did Vexen really love her? Of course for quite some time she'd been discretely hoping, but Vexen had never brought it up - was that really just because he was shy?  
"I suppose so," Naminé agreed distractedly. "But I don't know how we can fix things. If she's even going to try."  
And what did that mean now? They'd agreed to just be friends; this changed things. If he loved her this changed things in a big way, a big way that meant sharing a bed with him wasn't just friendly, or _cuddle benefits_ or whatever they'd called it. It meant that all this time there had still been a connection between them, and _that_ meant that Marluxia had no right to barge in and make her feel so, so _wonderful_ - and what were the consequences of that? If Marluxia thought she was available but Vexen didn't want her to be, and if Vexen actually _loved_ her, what then?  
"Naminé?"  
Vexen's voice broke her from her thoughts.  
"Huh?"  
"I asked you if you wanted to be friends with Larxene. You know, if she was sorry."  
"Oh." Naminé mumbled, feeling her stomach sink a little. And there was that to contend with, too, Larxene and her badly-timed hissy fits and long standing ulterior motives. It was all just too much. "I don't know."  
"You sound troubled." Vexen stated, which pretty much summed up how Naminé felt.  
"Yeah, I... I'm just so confused."  
"Maybe you need some time alone to think about it?" Vexen suggested, trying not to sound disappointed. Naminé squeezed him tighter.  
"You're comfortable."  
"Bony, more like," Vexen scoffed. "It must be wretched trying to rearrange yourself around my-"  
"Shut up, you're lovely." Naminé said. Vexen, clearly surprised, complied instantly.  
They lay in silence for some time.  
"I'm sorry," Naminé said after a while, "I just don't know what to do. Or think. Or anything. It's all just a big mess, and I don't have the brain capacity to comprehend it all right now."  
Vexen, although he clearly didn't understand each of Naminé's individual problems, he seemed to recognise the gravity of the situation.  
"Just take things one step at a time."  
"Why does it all have to happen at once," Naminé moaned softly, in lieu of some sort of agreement.  
"I concur," Vexen replied glumly. Naminé sighed with him, and again they settled down for a moment of shared misery in the jet darkness of the night. How late was it now? Naminé had no way of knowing, but no light emanated even from the cracks between the curtains. Naminé was tempted to get out of bed and watch the stars, if there were any out at this time of year, but Vexen was warm and encouragingly close, so she stayed put. The minutes of silence stretched out.  
"Vexen?"  
Naminé received no more than a gentle huff in reply. Vexen had fallen asleep. Sighing, Naminé shifted a little and settled down to do the same.

* * *

Morning.  
Larxene had spent the night in Marluxia's car, driving aimlessly. She'd stopped for coffees at every Starbucks she found at every service station, but eventually as the sun rose over the east she admitted that she couldn't keep driving forever (not least because Marluxia would want his car back) and began the laborious journey home to their pokey little house on the outskirts of their pokey little town. She arrived in the midmorning drizzle, just in time to see Vexen hobbling out of the front door on his crutches. She had half a mind to run him over, but considering how broken he was already any sort of impact with a ton of metal and plastic would probably kill him. Not that Larxene much cared for Vexen's welfare, but deaths were messy and the last thing she needed right now was a court summons for murder. So instead she simply pulled up in the drive and climbed out.  
"Where are you going?"  
Truthfully, Larxene wanted nothing less than to talk to Vexen, but he was arduously descending the steps at the front of the house so she had no choice but to let him pass.  
"Hospital," Vexen replied curtly. "Check up."  
"Good luck," Larxene intoned sarcastically, grabbing her bag out of the car. She probably looked a mess: but she was talking to Vexen, and she would be hard pushed to look more pathetic than him.  
Vexen hummed in the back of his throat a little, and shuffled on. But as Larxene was fumbling for her house keys, he turned suddenly and spoke.  
"You should apologise to her, you know."  
"For what?" Larxene screeched without meaning to, the emotions from last night rising once more. "For trying to stop her making the biggest mistake of her life and spreading her legs for _you_?"  
This seemed to stall Vexen a little, or maybe he was just fumbling with his crutches.  
"This isn't about what's between me and you," He said eventually. "You can hate me if you want but don't get Naminé involved-"  
"It has everything to do with you!" Larxene yelled furiously. "You didn't have to fuck her! She was a fucking virgin, she deserves so much better than you! You could have shown a little fucking self control, but no, you're so fucking convinced that she'd actually be stupid enough to love _you_ that you fucked her, you fucking _screwed_ her; this has _everything_ to do with me and you! You will _never_ be good enough for her!"  
Vexen glanced down at his feet, one in a falling-apart black shoe with scuffed toes, and one in crisp white bandages with his toes poking out of the end. They looked blue from the cold, because there was a hole in the sock that Vexen had hastily pulled over his bandaged foot.  
"I know that," He said.  
"Then why did you-?" Larxene began, soon tailing off because has hard as it was to think about Vexen and Naminé sharing a bed, saying so was infinitely worse.  
"Because she asked me to." Vexen replied simply. He began to trudge away again, but not before adding a few more words. "She deserves an apology, Larxene. And she deserves your friendship. It's not fair to hurt her like that."  
Larxene was silent as she watched Vexen reach the end of the front garden and begin the long walk up the road. There was no pavement; the tarmac simply stopped at a ditch: as few cars passed down this way, even fewer walked. There was the occasional hiker in the summer months, but they tended to use the woodland paths a little eastward, and it was ten, perhaps fifteen minutes (thirty considering Vexen's speed on crutches) to the rest of the town. Larxene supposed Vexen was going to the railway station, because the local doctor's surgery was closed on Saturdays and the nearest hospital was in the next town over, three stops away.  
If logical thought came into it, Larxene wouldn't have admitted so: but for some inexplicable reason she pulled her keys out of the door lock and scrambled back into the car. It took her thirty seconds to catch up with Vexen and wind the window down.  
"Get in. I'll give you a ride."  
Vexen dug in his pocket and pulled out a rail card.  
"It's okay, I'll catch the train."  
"I said, get in the fucking car. You miserable git."  
Vexen looked at a loss.  
"Why?"  
"Because I'm going to tie you up on the back seat and stab you fifty times then rape your dead body and throw you in a ditch."  
"... What?"  
"It was a joke, you idiot. I need to talk to you."  
Vexen stared at her for a minute (and a glimmer of that old satisfaction resurfaced when Larxene realised that he looked positively _terrified_), then opened the passenger door and awkwardly flopped into the seat.  
"Thank you."  
"Don't mention it," Larxene said as she drove off. "Seriously. Don't."  
They were silent until Larxene turned off onto the main road; Vexen spent the entire drive shifting awkwardly in his seat and feigning interest in their surroundings. Larxene spoke first.  
"You don't understand," She said flatly, gripping the steering wheel tightly for support. Each time she changed lanes, the car responded fluently and smoothly - as she had come to expect from anything owned by Marluxia. It was a custom make, perfect in design and flawless in execution. Vexen glanced briefly at her, but didn't reply. "You don't know how much I sacrificed for Naminé."  
"Try me," Vexen offered. Was there spite in his voice? Larxene couldn't tell. But she sighed anyway, keeping her focus on the road.  
"Do you think I want to live here in this shit hole for the rest of my life while Naminé follows her stupid little dreams?" Larxene asked. Vexen opened his mouth to reply, but Larxene cut him off. "Do you think that I wanted to waste my life's savings on that crappy, broken down house? On funding Naminé's college courses? Do you think that was what I wanted?"  
Vexen coughed a little; to Larxene he sounded nervous.  
"You know what I wanted to do?"  
"I don't know, what did you want to do." Vexen dutifully asked.  
"I wanted to be a journalist." Larxene spat. "I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to meet new people and discover new cultures and learn new languages. I wanted to have _fun_."  
"Oh." Vexen said.  
"It wasn't like I didn't get the opportunity, either. I found a firm who was going to put me on the right courses, so I could do all my training. I had everything sorted." Larxene sighed deeply, pausing for a moment to navigate a tricky junction. "And you know why I didn't do any of that? Why I didn't go to fucking Las Vegas to live my dream?"  
Vexen didn't reply. He was scratching uselessly at the cast on his arm.  
"Because of Naminé. Because Naminé wanted to stay in shitty England with its shitty economic climate and its shitty weather and live in that shitty little house. She didn't have enough money on her own. She didn't have the confidence to live away from her parents without company. She didn't want me to go. So I stayed. I fucking stayed. I sacrificed everything for her."  
"Because you love her." Vexen said finally. Larxene bottled her pride and nodded.  
"I love her. She means the world to me."  
"I can relate to that," Vexen replied quietly. Larxene glared at him incredulously, until she nearly hit the car in front and had to swerve suddenly. It was to her satisfaction that Vexen was thrown roughly into the window and yelped.  
"What do you know about love?" She asked bitterly. "You hardly know her."  
Vexen, once he was done fussing over his broken arm, looked up through his tousled hair.  
"Right now, she's all I've got."  
"Oh, come off it," Larxene snapped. "You've got friends at work, haven't you?"  
Vexen had gone strangely quiet, fiddling with the zip on his cagoule as though it were incredibly interesting.  
"You haven't got any friends."  
"No," Vexen said through gritted teeth. "You took your time noticing."  
"I just thought that-" Larxene began, but she soon shut up. "I wasn't being _serious_ when I said that you were-"  
"No, but it's true. So you don't need to worry about taking the joke too far." Vexen interrupted. He sighed a little when Larxene didn't reply. "Do you think you're the only one whose dreams never came true?"  
"Oh, go on then," Larxene groaned sarcastically. "Tell me your sob story, let's be miserable fuckers together."  
"I was just saying," Vexen said defensively, and didn't elaborate. They drove on, into the next town and out the other side where the hospital complex sprawled just off the bypass.  
"What was your dream, then?"  
Larxene didn't miss the faint blush that rose to Vexen's cheeks.  
"I wanted to be a climate research scientist," He said, sounding as though he was reciting lines from a script. "I wanted to do a doctorate in environmental sciences. But I ran out of money so I gave up. In retrospect, I should have just taken on more part time jobs and taken out more loans, but it's too late now."  
"Sucks to be us." Larxene announced as she dropped Vexen off by the visitor's entrance. This took quite some time, as he had to lever himself out of the car with crutches in hand, balancing on one leg.  
"Yeah."  
"How long are you going to be?"  
Vexen shrugged.  
"I don't know. Depends how long the waiting line is. A few hours, maybe?"  
"I'll come pick you up," Larxene offered. Vexen looked at her like maybe she'd hit her head on something, hard.  
"Why?" He said sceptically, frowning. Larxene danced around the answer for several minutes, mostly because she didn't know herself.  
"I haven't got anything better to do. Call me when you're done, okay?"  
"I don't have a mobile phone." Vexen said.  
"Fucksake."  
Larxene scrabbled around in her pocket, producing a pink smart phone that looked somewhat battered and handing it to Vexen. He took it like it was diseased.  
"Call the house phone," She said. "The number's on there and the key code is Naminé's birthday."  
"I don't know when that is," Vexen replied uselessly, trying - and failing - to give back the phone.  
"Second of July, you idiot. Oh-two-oh-seven."  
"R-right."  
There was a bit of a pause as Vexen shuffled in the slowly worsening rain. He looked a bit like a drowned rat.  
"And, uh, Larxene?"  
"What."  
"Apologise to her. Please. She- she needs it. You both do."  
Larxene searched Vexen's eyes. They were worryingly sincere.  
"Fine."  
Larxene slammed the door closed on his hopeless face, and drove away into the stream of traffic leaving the hospital. As she was turning the corner she just caught him enter the complex out of the corner of her eye, long hair trailing behind him in the wind.


	18. 17 I Think it's Cute

Being Saturday, Naminé had precious little to do other than tidy up the house once Vexen had left for his hospital appointment. She started in the kitchen, surprised that Larxene wasn't around, rearranging crockery and cleaning out cupboards. Twenty minutes into her work, she found a leaking pipe rotting away the back of the Tupperware cupboard.  
"Oh, no..."  
She took out all the plastic tubs and pots and stacked them on the floor, reaching in to inspect the damage. It was even worse than she'd originally thought, and appeared to have spread to the cupboard next to it. Naminé emptied that one, too, noting the rotting wood with a critical eye. It seemed to have stretched past the cupboards and into the structure of the house itself, which was an enormous bother; if that crumbled the whole building would come toppling down. Naminé sat back, groaning.  
"Got a problem there, sweetheart?"  
It was Marluxia, leaning against the doorway. When Naminé caught his eye he sauntered in, smiling a little, and crouched down to peer into the cupboard.  
"It's rotting," Naminé said. "The wood's gone all soft and crumbly, and this is a really big problem. _Another_ really big problem."  
"I'm sure it's nothing that can't be fixed," Marluxia said sympathetically. Naminé sighed wistfully.  
"We don't have enough money for that."  
Marluxia hummed a little in the back of his throat.  
"I'm sure we can make arrangements," He said.  
"We can't ask more money from Vexen," Naminé said desperately. "He's flat broke as it is."  
"I'm not talking about Vexen," Marluxia said as though it were obvious. Naminé, who'd funded a new fridge, a cockroach infection and most recently the replumbing of what seemed like half the bathroom, was barely even hopeful.  
"It'll cost hundreds, if not thousands, to get this fixed. What were we thinking?"  
Marluxia pressed his fingers against the wood, which squeaked dully at the contact. A woodlouse scuttled after it. Then he stood, and inspected the vertical beam holding the wall in place. Only about half of the house was built with brick: some parts were constructed with stones but this corner, from what Naminé could tell, was just held up by four heavy wooden beams. Like somebody had built one room and kept adding to it until they had run out of money. Another set ran across the ceiling, too, but aside from several decades of dust and dirt they seemed to be unaffected by age.  
"Is there anything else broken in the kitchen?"  
Naminé gestured to the splintered wooden worktop, the jammed electrical plug, the perpetually blocked sink, and the cracked tiling on the floor. Marluxia hummed thoughtfully.  
"I see."  
Naminé got back down on her hands and knees, and began to replace the Tupperware boxes.  
"We'll make do, I suppose."  
"Vexen's at the hospital?"  
The sudden about-face in conversation threw Naminé off a little.  
"Y-yeah."  
"And Larxene?"  
"I don't _know_," Naminé snapped irritably, not wanting to remember her (former) best friend. A small part of her hoped that Larxene had left forever, and was going to spend the rest of her life sleeping with men, which was obviously far more interesting and suited to her needs than staying with Naminé.  
Marluxia nodded as though this answered some unvoiced question. He rummaged around in the fridge for a few moments, but found nothing of interest; minutes later he wandered out and left Naminé alone. She procrastinated accepting that there was nothing she could do about the rotting wood for some time, but eventually she found herself listlessly sitting at the kitchen table, thumbing through one of Larxene's glossy magazines. There was some post at Vexen's place, too: slightly surprised, Naminé picked it up and leafed through the envelopes. There were some official-looking ones with plastic windows that Naminé ignored, and a card. Handwritten address and a first class stamp. Unable to help herself, Naminé carefully prised it open, making sure not to rip the paper. The card, a photograph, featured a pair of polar bear cubs tumbling about in a snowy wasteland.  
Naminé flipped it open. The handwriting inside matched the address: neat and feminine.  
_Vexen,  
I heard you had an accident. Honestly, you should take better care of yourself. I hope you get better soon. Take it easy. I know what you're like.  
Aqua_  
Naminé read the card over a few times, then slipped it back and resealed it so that her intrusion was barely noticeable. She hadn't heard of anybody called Aqua before; she was fairly certain that it wasn't a friend, because Vexen didn't have any friends - and it wasn't a work colleague, because none of them could have known him enough to give him a card with polar bears on the front. A relation, perhaps?  
She made a note to ask Vexen later, and replaced the envelopes. There was, as usual, nothing at Marluxia's place - he occasionally received parcels but he always collected them personally from the door.  
Nothing else of interest was left in the kitchen. Naminé made her way out into the hallway, then right past the staircase and into the little living room. This, too, was beginning to look decrepit - a few posters and some of Naminé's old work decorated three of the peeling plaster walls; the other was occupied by a decently sized bookshelf which was also home to their DVD and CD collection and a dead pot plant.  
Naminé picked up the poor thing and carried it out into the garden where she threw it over the bottom fence, feeling disillusioned. The house cost more to upkeep than Larxene earned at her nine-to-five job in town, or Vexen's modest monthly fee. And if Larxene was gone... she'd have to move out. Vexen, the poor thing, would have to find somewhere else. She'd probably have to quit her art degree and get a job, or else move back in with her parents and commute to college every day.  
The future, without Larxene, seemed bleak.  
Naminé hesitated by the gate for a few minutes, watching the smudgy clouds squat listlessly in the sky, then returned inside. Larxene would have her phone on her; she could call and apologise and make up - and they'd be friends again, just like they were supposed to be.  
Considering that Larxene was fairly stapled to her phone, Naminé spent a long time with the house's handset pressed against her ear listening to the dialling tone. Then there was a brief scuffle and some no distinct murmurs of conversation, until finally _Vexen's_ voice of all things came down the line.  
"H-hello? Who is this? Naminé?"  
"Vexen? What are you doing with Larxene's phone?"  
"I- I'm borrowing it. She said I could. So I could call her, because she said she'd pick me up from the hospital. Do you want to talk to her?"  
Fleetingly, Naminé wondered if it had occurred to Vexen that she would hardly call Larxene if she had no intention of conversing with her.  
"Yeah. I just wanted to apologise to her."  
"For what?"  
"You know. For the argument."  
"That was as much her fault as yours, if not more," Vexen huffed after a moment's pause, then seemed to be talking to somebody else for a few moments because his voice was faraway and indistinct - "I'm sorry, should I be outside? I can go outside, I'll just-" and there was a serious clatter, more fumbling, and finally Vexen's voice came clearly through the speaker again. "Sorry. I dropped the phone."  
Naminé allowed herself a single-breath chuckle.  
"It's alright. I suppose I'll wait, then."  
"She should be the one apologising to you," Vexen said. "I know I said she probably had good reasons for it last night, but she should still be apologising to you."  
"You don't understand how much I need her," Naminé replied quietly. She sank down to the floor, pulling the plastic telephone coils into a taut spiral down the wall. "I don't have enough money without her. I don't have a job, and she has the deeds to the house. If she left... I'd have to quit college. I'd have to move out. I don't know what would happen to the house."  
Vexen was silent for some time. Then he sighed.  
"But she's been a horrible friend."  
"But I _need_ her," Naminé protested weakly. It was indisputable.  
"Naminé, she used you. She-"  
"What do you know about friendship?" Naminé snapped before she could stop herself. It came out very suddenly, like a burp, only fouler and followed by an even more horrible silence.  
"I did have friends once," Vexen said eventually in a small voice, sounding hurt.  
"I'm sorry," Naminé replied, feeling more guilty than she could really express in words. "I'm sorry, I'm just stressed, I didn't mean to-"  
"No," Vexen interrupted. "No, you're right. I don't really know anything about relationships. Maybe you should ask Marluxia. He's- he's pretty good at this sort of stuff."  
"Marluxia feels like a mirror right now," Naminé admitted. "I never know what he's actually thinking. He just reflects me back at myself."  
Vexen considered this for a long time, as though he were applying this hypothesis to some deeper experience. It didn't seem to satisfy him.  
"I suppose."  
There was another silence, this one brief. Naminé was about to say something into it when she heard the unmistakeable sound of a car pulling up in the driveway, which could only mean one thing - Larxene.  
"She's home. I'd better go."  
"Okay. Naminé?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Just..." Vexen took an audible breath- "Hold your ground, will you? I know this is pretty rich coming from me, but don't just back down. You deserve an apology."  
Naminé smiled, despite herself.  
"I'll try," She promised, then stood and placed the phone back on the hook. Larxene was just clattering in through the front door and then there she was, having loped up the stairs onto the landing and their eyes met in a jittering, jolting clash.  
"Hullo," Naminé said. Larxene jerkily nodded her head.  
"Hey."  
The pause spanned two, three, four, five, ten seconds.  
"You came home." Naminé finally stated. Again, Larxene nodded.  
"Couldn't leave you fuckers on your miserable lonesomes."  
"I guess," Naminé said, glancing away at the phone. They avoided each other's gaze for a bit, procrastinating.  
"So, uh," Naminé said, just as Larxene said; "Look, Naminé," and they both stopped.  
"You first."  
"No, you."  
"It's almost lunchtime," Larxene said, which obviously wasn't what she was going to say. "Let's get pizza."  
"Okay," Said Naminé.  
It took thirty five minutes to order a large Margherita (classic cheapskate option; they'd cover the pizza with things from the fridge and pop it in the oven) and have it delivered, steaming, to their door. Once it was duly bedazzled, Larxene ripped off a slice and ate with a vengeance.  
"Fuck, pizza tastes good when you haven't eaten for twenty four hours."  
"I guess."  
The silence encroached again, thick and smoggy.  
"So," Larxene said finally, licking the grease of her third slice from her fingers.  
"So," Naminé echoed listlessly. She'd sort of expected an argument - that certainly would have been easier, because then she could let out all her angst and confusion and anger, but instead there was just this, something that wasn't even a conversation and steaming, overloaded pizza in a greasy cardboard box.  
"Vexen told me to apologise."  
"Vexen seems awfully concerned about the outcome of this..." Naminé began with a view to completing her sentence, but then she couldn't find a suitable word to describe the chasm between her and her best friend, so she simply trailed off uncertainly.  
"Loathe as I am to admit it, he's got good reason to be." Larxene said, picking up another slice of pizza. Sweetcorn rolled off the sides and cheese oozed lazily off the base. "I mean, if we break up he's got to go looking for a new home and besides, he's fallen madly and irrevocably in love with you."  
Naminé blushed.  
"I think it's more of a crush, actually, but-"  
"Vexen doesn't know the difference," Larxene said dismissively. "He doesn't know how to deal with his emotions. Or other people for that matter."  
"I don't think he's fallen in love before," Naminé murmured. Larxene scoffed.  
"Sure he has. He just probably hasn't ever fallen in love with a girl he's actually talked to."  
"You're being harsh."  
"I'm being realistic. Does he look, or act, like the type to just mosey on up to girls and strike up a conversation?"  
"I guess,"  
Larxene shook her head, laughing a little. Funny how, even though the two girls shouldn't even have been on speaking terms, Larxene could still laugh and idly swear and throw around jokes as though nothing had happened at all.  
"Men."  
"Vexen's not like normal men," Naminé mused.  
"'Course not. He's a woman."  
"What?"  
And Larxene broke into fits of giggles, banging her fist against the table.  
"Oh my God Naminé, your face... Oh my God, that practically makes you a lesbian..."  
"I'm not a lesbian!" Naminé huffed. "Larxene, come on, Vexen's a man and we _both_ know it."  
Larxene just laughed more.  
"I don't mean physically," She squealed, practically choking on over-baked strips of lunch meat. "Of course he has a cock and all. I'm talking about in his head."  
She paused to collect herself, and Naminé took a slice of pizza. This, she recognised, was one of Larxene's infamous Genius Ideas, which were usually completely implausible and totally stupid.  
"Think about it," The older woman finally said once she'd stopped giggling so much. "He's _obsessively_ clean-"  
"Why's that so weird?"  
"Because men are pigs. Anyway, he's obsessively clean, he wears his emotions on his freaking sleeve, he has all these issues with his body-"  
"Well-"  
"And he gets emotional about sex." Larxene finished triumphantly. "Trust me, I have fucked a lot of men, and it's always the same: for them sex is just a thing, where you put your dick in a woman and wiggle it about and it feels good. But trust me, I know this and you do too, with Vexen it is a whole fucking massive _ordeal_."  
Naminé considered this and surprisingly, she couldn't really dispute it.  
"Okay. So Vexen thinks like a _stereotypical_ woman."  
"You know what that's a massive sign of."  
Suddenly Naminé recalled the half darkness of her room some weeks ago, Vexen's horrified, guilty expression when she'd asked _did you sleep with Marluxia_. She sighed deeply, setting down her half eaten pizza slice.  
"Are you going to apologise or not?"  
Larxene knotted her fingers together and seemed to draw herself up in the chair.  
"Naminé," She said in a slightly strangled voice, "I'm sorry for driving your boyfriends away."  
"Thank you," Naminé replied, feeling heartfelt relief wash over her.  
"I was only trying to protect you," Larxene said. She had taken to studying at the half eaten pizza unusually closely.  
"I know," Naminé murmured. "Just let me make my own decisions from now on, okay? And I'll deal with the consequences as they come."  
This seemed a difficult thing for Larxene to promise, but eventually she nodded.  
"Alright."  
Naminé stood from her place and wrapped her arms around Larxene's skinny shoulders. She felt hot palms against her skin, the slight press of long nails where Larxene held her with the ferocity Naminé had long since come to expect.  
"I forgive you."  
Larxene took a deep breath, chest rising and falling beneath her slightly dirty tank top. Then she stood so suddenly that Naminé nearly toppled backwards into the wall behind her.  
"I need a shower."  
She took another piece of pizza and near enough wolfed it down. Naminé skittered around her and sat down again.  
"Larxene? Can I ask you a question, please?"  
"Sure."  
"When you... when you and Vexen, you know."  
"When I fucked him, yes."  
It was strange to imagine Larxene having had sex with Vexen. Naminé had never really known much, only overheard Larxene complaining to herself a few days afterwards and had, along with Vexen's odd behaviour for weeks following the event, put two and two together.  
"What happened?"  
"I was drunk off my face, came back from a party and got our rooms mixed up," Larxene replied blankly, shrugging. As though she could talk about Vexen being too emotional about sex; to Larxene, it seemed, sex was nothing more than physical pleasure. "Well, anyway, I ended up in his bed and so I must have thought it was a good idea at the time. He just twitched and squirmed and said 'oh my God' a lot. Then I think I puked on his floor, but I don't remember much after that."  
"I mean after," Naminé said once she'd managed to remove every horrible mental image from her head. "I mean, what did he do afterwards."  
"Why do you want to know so much?" Larxene asked, sceptical.  
"I'm just curious," Naminé replied honestly. Larxene watched her eyes for a moment, and deemed this to be true.  
"Well, we argued about it the next day. He blamed it on me, saying that if I wasn't such a slut he wouldn't have lost his virginity, and I think I said that he wasn't exactly going to get laid any other way."  
"And?"  
"I can't remember, this was ages ago. He asked if he was that awful and I said yes, and he seemed to think that it was because he was inexperienced so I told him that it was because he was just completely sexually inadequate and... then I think he told me to shut up and go away. But that was just because he didn't want me to realise he was crying."  
"I would be crying too if the person I lost my virginity to told me I was awful," Naminé mused. Then she glanced up to notice that Larxene was scowling disapprovingly at her. "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of why Vexen is so unconfident."  
"It's obvious," Larxene said, piling the rest of the pizza up and dumping it in the cold oven for safekeeping. "He was bullied and he never got over it. Come on, Psychology Of Vexen's not so startling or unusual. He was teased at school, so he acts like a jerk. And he's miserable because nobody likes him. End of."  
They made their way upstairs, where Larxene headed straight for her room.  
"Can't we talk about something other than Vexen, for once?"  
Larxene's room was the first on the right upstairs, a decently sized room that was home to a double bed with mismatched covers, a wardrobe and little else. Larxene, unlike Naminé, wasn't much of a collector. Her room, sparse and undecorated bar a few posters, reflected her life: she wasn't one to be trapped by possessions and belongings. Experiences were what was important to her.  
Naminé sat down on the bed as Larxene pulled a towel and a clean change of clothes out of her drawers. There was a notice board on the opposite wall, the only thing in the room thriving with life - it was covered in photographs, particularly ones of the two girls grinning up into a crooked camera, old tickets for movies and events and trains, letters and certificates buried deep beneath. Full of memories. But none of the pictures or tickets were recent.  
"You're not happy either, are you?"  
"Thank you the fuck for noticing," Larxene replied spitefully. Naminé bit her lip, harrowing nerves resurfacing. Couldn't she talk to Larxene any more without them arguing? What was wrong with them?  
"I-"  
"But oh, no, Vexen's having a mid-life crisis, so he's _so_ much more important than your best friend," Larxene continued sarcastically. Naminé pulled at her fingers, torn between defending Vexen and avoiding yet another awful conflict.  
"I don't want to fight with you," She whispered.  
"No, you just want to take me for granted like you always did."  
Naminé felt tears rising to her eyes. She'd never taken Larxene for granted - had she? The truth, the horrible truth, was that she just didn't know.  
"I'm sorry!" She exclaimed, "I didn't realise-"  
"That I never wanted to be here in the first place? That I gave up everything for you? That-"  
"Don't!" Naminé blurted out. Tears were pouring down her cheeks now; she hitched her knees up to her chin, hugging them close as though they could somehow contain the sobs convulsing though her body. "Please, Larxene, I'm _sorry_, I didn't mean to upset you, I'm sorry I've been an awful friend, and I'll make it up to you, but... Larxene?"  
Larxene had fallen strangely silent. Her hand was resting against the last photograph of the two of them tacked to the notice board, taken on a day up in town a few weeks before Marluxia had moved in.  
"Shut up, Naminé."  
"I'm sorry," Naminé whimpered again. Everything seemed to be crashing down on her, here in this dimly lit room that smelled of Larxene's deodorant and hair gel, that for all a stranger would have known could have been unoccupied for a year. Her dream seemed to ridiculous, so far off and impossible to reach; all hope of a cosy future with Larxene in this tumbledown house was suddenly naive and ignorant. The truth was that Larxene – whether it was now or in a year or in ten years - was going to leave and things would be over.  
Larxene spent several minutes studying the photograph. Then she collected up her clothes and her towel, and made for the door.  
"Wait here."  
Naminé reached for a tissue to dry her eyes, then once she was done sniffing curled up on the bed, letting Larxene's scent overwhelm her. It was distinctly masculine, somehow, but Larxene had always been like that - not one for the airy, delicate perfumes that Naminé used from time to time, instead buying men's colognes and wearing men's clothes and cutting her hair short in rebellion of her conservative parents.  
Naminé buried her face in Larxene's pillow, thinking deeply. She didn't stay that way for long; her nose had come into contact with something hard. Tucked underneath the pillow was a book with a faded, cracked leather cover. Curiosity paramount, Naminé opened it up. It was a photo album, filled mostly, amongst arty nature shots and obligatory I-was-here photos, with portraits of her. Smiling into the camera, or laughing at some unseen source of hilarity, eyes unfocused from the days of weekend party tipsiness, or twirling expensive outfits in changing cubicles of shops or in a tankini at the beach, totally unaware of the camera - and even a few of her sleeping in her own room, hair mussed and rosy lips slightly parted.  
Until her camera had broken, Larxene had always been one for taking photos, of both Naminé and just about everything else - but she hadn't realised Larxene had kept them. It was sort of sweet. There were notes by most of the pictures, too, and Naminé was just reading through them when Larxene returned freshly washed with her boyish hair hanging in her eyes. As soon as she saw the book, she yelled and snatched it away from Naminé's fingertips, shoving it in the wardrobe.  
"Don't look at that!"  
"Why not?" Naminé asked, sitting back up again and feeling foolish. Larxene looked furious, her cheeks flushed red as she slammed the wardrobe door shut. "I thought it was cute..."  
"_Cute_?" Larxene echoed incredulously, beginning to pace. "That I have a photo album filled with pictures of you under my pillow?"  
Naminé tried her best at a smile. The way Larxene put it, it sounded a little creepy - but when she'd been looking through the pictures she'd felt special, that she was so important to Larxene the photographs were worth printing out and remembering.  
"Y-yeah."  
Larxene sighed in exasperation, slumping on the bed.  
"You weren't supposed to know about that."  
Naminé summoned a little courage and crawled over to Larxene to give her a hug.  
"It's okay," She whispered uncertainly as Larxene put her head in her hands. "I don't mind."  
In all honesty, her heart was racing so fast with emotions she wasn't even sure what she felt, but Larxene looked like she badly needed comforting - and that meant things were serious.  
"How did this get so fucked up," She moaned quietly between her fingers. "We were best friends and I didn't care where we were because we were happy, how did this go so badly _wrong_?"  
_Marluxia_, Naminé thought - but she didn't voice her suspicions. It wasn't Marluxia's fault, after all; it was just a coincidence. Wasn't it?  
"I-it's not too late to fix things."  
Larxene looked up, her eyes red. Without thinking, Naminé reached out and brushed her shockingly blonde locks away from her face, the way she'd done for the first time so many years ago. To her surprise, Larxene smiled crookedly and suddenly they were falling in a tight embrace down on the duvet, clinging with an indescribable desperation to bodies and limbs, and crying openly into each other's shoulders.  
"God, Naminé, I miss you so much. I never want to lose you."  
"We can fix things," Naminé was saying over and over like a mantra. "It's okay, we can always be friends."  
And holding Larxene close like that, laughing through the tears until the phone rang and she had to go pick up Vexen, Naminé really believed it.


	19. 18 In Which Circumstances Change

So Vexen hobbled in through the front door about an hour and a half later, flopped down onto the sofa and to all intents and purposes looked as though he was going to fall asleep right here.  
"The good news," He had said, yawning, "Is that my bones are healing nicely and I can finally go back to work on Monday."  
"And the bad news?" Naminé had asked, because when it came to Vexen there was always, unconditionally, bad news.  
"The bad news is that the doctor doesn't think I ought to go on trains. And I don't have a car."  
"Maybe Larxene will run you up?"  
Vexen had peered around the corner of the sitting room door, as though Larxene was lurking in the hallway waiting to attack him when he came out. But she didn't appear to be there, so he settled down again, scratching his cast.  
"I don't ever want to be in a car that Larxene is driving ever again. Her kamikaze methods are terrifying to say the least."  
Naminé had giggled at that (partly because it was funny but mostly because it was true).  
"You could ask Marluxia, I suppose."  
"Marluxia's even worse. I'll just get the train anyway, if I go early I'll miss the rush hour."  
"Well," Naminé had said, "If you're sure."  
And Vexen was sure. Naminé didn't see much of him on Sunday on account of going to the cinema with Larxene and then spending hours in the park making up for all the lost photo opportunities from the last year, and then it was seven o'clock on Monday morning and Vexen had long since disappeared from the house.  
Naminé, who didn't need to go to college until the afternoon, went back to bed.

* * *

She woke, several hours later, to the sound of voices - one of which she recognised instantly as Marluxia's, and several that she didn't. Rubbing her eyes, she rolled gracelessly out of bed and bumped into Larxene on the way downstairs, who had apparently had the same misgivings about why Marluxia had (from the sounds of things) invited several gruff men into the house.  
They were just in the corridor when Marluxia slipped out of the kitchen, smiling.  
"What's going on?" Larxene instantly said, craning her neck around Marluxia's mass to make out the figures in the kitchen. "If you're planning an orgy, get the fuck out and book a hotel room."  
Marluxia, who had apparently not got up so long ago, cracked the base of his spine, rocking on his toes.  
"Just some restructural work."  
"Is that supposed to be some bizarre sexual innuendo?" Larxene asked, scowling. Marluxia laughed, but his eyes were serious.  
"Unfortunately, no. If the ceiling isn't properly supported the house will fall down."  
Larxene was appropriately silenced.  
"Oh." She said. And then, "Fuck."  
"Gladly," Marluxia murmured, one hand sliding to the curve of Larxene's hip. She irritably batted him away.  
"We can't afford this."  
She didn't seem to have made any impression on Marluxia, who leant down to kiss her neck and cheeks. Naminé, forgotten in the corner, felt embarrassed by his public display of affection, and tried to slip away. But he caught her wrist before she even took a step, focusing on her with burning eyes. But then he glanced away, to nobody in particular, sliding easily away from the two girls.  
"I have it covered."  
He was gone before Naminé had even managed to make a surprised little _o_ with her mouth, leaving nothing but the faintest hint of his freshly cut grass scent behind.  
"What." Larxene was saying. "What the fuck, Marluxia's never paid anything more than the rent before."  
"Well, he's been paying Vexen's rent for about the last six months," Naminé pointed out, quietly.  
"Yeah, because Vexen wasn't. Why's he doing this _now_? The kitchen was just as crumbling a year ago."  
It was something that Naminé, observant as she was, couldn't quite explain. So she wandered into the kitchen where four rugged men were dismantling the work surfaces, packing the contents of the shelves neatly into cardboard boxes. For a while, Naminé couldn't work out why Marluxia hadn't actually brought this up before hiring the builders, but eventually she settled on the element of surprise - which seemed elementary to Marluxia's way of life.  
"You know what this means," Larxene was saying dully behind her.  
"Huh?"  
"More excuses to eat pizza."  
"For breakfast?"  
This did not seem to deter Larxene.  
"Yes."  
There was some of last night's pizza left in the fridge, which Naminé nabbed as it was being carried into the sitting room; then the two of them sat at the base of the stairs, the box resting on Larxene's lap.  
"Obviously Marluxia's doing this for a reason," Larxene said as she ate (more slowly and graciously than before). "The pretentious bastard. But _why_?"  
"Well, we did talk about how the wood was rotting yesterday," Naminé mused, catching errant sweet corns before they hit the floor.  
"But he knows that the house is falling down," Larxene retorted. "What's _changed_?"  
Naminé considered this very seriously for some time.  
"I don't know," She finally admitted. "Maybe he only realised now that it's actually serious, or something."  
Larxene stood, making for her room upstairs.  
"It doesn't seem like him. He'd either do something like this for a _reason_ or not at all, the pompous cock."  
Naminé actually thought that Marluxia was rather down to Earth, a kind man twisted only by the circumstances of his life, but she didn't mention that to Larxene.  
The day passed uneventfully if not quietly; the men worked until Vexen came home at nine and left a half-dismantled kitchen behind: but they were busy again at eight the next morning. Marluxia told them they'd be finished late on Friday and made no mention of price, saying only that he would pay. Naminé didn't even have a clue what exactly they were doing.  
The days dragged on.

* * *

It wasn't until a few weeks later - when, to everyone's surprise, the kitchen had actually not just been restructured by completely refitted - that Naminé found herself in Vexen's room again. He'd come home from work on time (he usually worked late) to fumble with repairing more of his old books, and since his left hand was still (to his eternal aggravation) more or less out of commission, this had turned into Naminé rebinding the spines and Vexen fretting over the aged leather and crackling paper.  
"I've collected old books ever since I was quite young," He explained as he sorted and aligned a bundle of signatures that had lain in a plastic bag for what seemed to be several years. "I always loved second hand bookshops."  
Naminé simply smiled as she pulled embroidery thread through the folded pages of a fifties' costume romance. Left to his own devices and a willing ear, Vexen would happily ramble on every which way in his own little musings. It was sort of cute.  
"I always felt so at home there. I used to spend hours hiding in the corners reading." A pause as Vexen reached down to pick up another signature, checking the page numbers before slotting it into place. "You know, when I didn't want to be found. I guess I felt like it was where I belonged."  
"In second hand bookshops."  
Vexen smiled wistfully, finding the right hard cover and slotting it into place for sewing up later.  
"Yeah."  
Naminé sighed softly, although not in agitation, leaning against Vexen's thin frame. He reciprocated, a patchily warm and heavy weight beside her. They worked in silence for a few more minutes, the dusty scent of old paper hanging thick in the air, each immersed in their own private thoughts. It was Naminé who spoke finally, as she tied off the last threaded line of the binding she'd been working on.  
"You were bullied a lot, weren't you? When you were younger."  
Vexen sighed, setting down his book and beginning to scratch aimlessly at the cast still lying heavy around his forearm.  
"It shows, doesn't it."  
"Well-" Naminé began, but Vexen cut her off.  
"I probably brought it on myself. I've always been a loner. I'm pretty unpleasant to most people when it comes down to it."  
"You seem like a nice person to me," Naminé said reproachfully.  
"That's because you reminded me what it's like to have friends," Vexen mumbled gruffly, ducking his head. "And I don't ever want to go back to being alone again."  
Naminé pulled Vexen into a hug, because he looked even more than usual like he needed one. He moved with equal parts awkwardness and determination to twist and hold her back, hands so tentatively as always splayed across her back.  
"We can always be friends."  
Vexen smiled ruefully, leaning perhaps a little closer than he should have done to Naminé's slim frame. She could feel each breath puff against her ear, smell the slight coffee/Sainsbury's shampoo scent that so clearly defined Vexen. Cold hands, warm ribs. Strangely beautiful, in his own way. Strangely perfect to kiss goodnight, to gently propel bedward and tuck up warm beneath the thick duvet cover. It wasn't until she was leaving the room that Naminé noticed again the card she'd seen at Vexen's place, this time blu-tacked to the wall.  
"Oh, Vexen?"  
"Yeah?"  
Vexen sounded sleepy, a yawn bubbling his words.  
"Who's Aqua?"  
"Aqua? Oh, she's my sister. She's, uh, the only member of my family who still really talks to me. Apart from Christmas cards and all of that. She calls me occasionally to make sure that I'm okay."  
Naminé nodded; that made sense.  
"That's nice of her."  
Vexen hummed affirmatively.  
"She's... she's always been there for me when I've needed help the most."  
It wasn't until Naminé was skittering away to her own bedroom that she thought to wonder - if Aqua hadn't been around when Vexen was friendless and jobless and very nearly homeless - how bad must his life been before to warrant her aid?

* * *

It was a Sunday morning, in the last vestiges of November, that Vexen woke to find that somebody had come into his room in the night and left a neatly folded pile of clothes on his obsessively clear desk. Frowning, he climbed gracelessly out of bed (the bandages over his ribs had since been removed, but his left arm and leg were still constricted by casts) and walked over to inspect the pile. There didn't seem to be a label or tag - but as soon as he got close Vexen knew who had left the immaculately navy suit with just a little too much flair at the hips and oddly long trouser legs. There was also, in the pile, a rather nice shirt in baby blue, with cufflinks that were shaped suspiciously like the periodic table.  
Although there was no way he would actually wear the suit (least of all to work, particularly given the state of his current suit, which was sprouting loose threads every which way, and badly needed repair in several places), Vexen couldn't help listening out for movement in the house (there was none) before shedding his pyjamas and, once he'd located a pair of boxers that wasn't falling apart (he needed to buy more, but where would he find the money?) he pulled the suit on. As he'd half expected, it fitted snugly against his skin, soft and comfortable. He shifted a little, and soundlessly the fabric moved around him. Shaking his head a little, because inexplicable as the present was it was somehow so like Marluxia, Vexen unbuckled the nice leather belt that had come with the trousers, and began to fiddle with the fly.  
"I see you found my gift."  
The unmistakeable voice from the doorway snapped Vexen from his thoughts - this time he was quick to pull the trousers back up his legs and fasten the button back into place, remembering all to clearly what had happened last time Marluxia had walked in on him undressing.  
"Attractive, but impractical," He clipped, instead removing the weighty jacket. It slid almost too effortlessly from his shoulders. Careful not to crumple the textiles, he laid the article back down on the desk, and turned to face Marluxia, determined not to lose his cool this time. He levelled his eyes with Marluxia's, and found them irritatingly bottomless.  
"Oh, I'm sure we'll be able to find a use for it somewhere."  
"Funny," Vexen said coldly, refusing to back down, "I was under the impression that you were more interested in removing my clothes."  
Marluxia chuckled a little, pushing himself with his fingertips away from the wall, against which he had been leaning.  
"Well, if that's what you'd like..." he murmured affectionately. Vexen hissed in the back of his throat, signifying that no, that was definitely not what he wanted.  
"So what's this all for?" He asked finally, when Marluxia responded to his abrupt rebuttal with only a smirk, gesturing to both the jacket on the desk and his current attire. Marluxia, who had been looking at the distant, foggy sunrise, turned back to gaze impassively at Vexen. It made him uncomfortable, as though the gesture was saying that Marluxia _could_ be undressing Vexen with his eyes - but he wasn't, and Vexen ought to be grateful for this fact.  
"I thought I would take you out for lunch today."  
"And I don't get a choice in this matter." Vexen retorted flatly, torn between spending another moment in these selfish clothes, and stripping in front of Marluxia.  
Marluxia laughed again, and he sounded genuinely amused.  
"Of course not," He said lightly, and Vexen wasn't sure if he was joking or not; but suddenly, Marluxia was terrifyingly close, murmuring silky half-whispers into his ear. Instantly, Vexen's guts flared with some incredible heat, as he remembered the first night, when Marluxia walked in through _this_ door and straddled him on _this_ chair and held him down with _these_ strong hands, and forced him into helpless, pitiful surrender with _this_ hot tongue...  
_"Don't make me scream for help, because I will."_  
Vexen felt the back of his spine bump against the back of his desk, Marluxia's hands burning against his prickling skin; it was only when their bodies brushed together and Vexen felt the definitive curve of Marluxia's hips and stomach that he even thought to push the man away.  
"G-get off me!"  
But Marluxia didn't seem too displeased at being irritably prised away from Vexen's skin; he simply smiled as he made for the door.  
"I'll take that as a yes, then."  
"No-!"  
"I'll see you at eleven." Marluxia interrupted, smirking.  
_"Will you indeed?"_  
And then he had disappeared, leaving Vexen to fall inelegantly into his chair, struck by the sudden prospect that maybe he had never screamed for help because somewhere hidden deep inside he didn't _want_ to.

... But Marluxia was there with a bow and a presented hand at eleven o'clock sharp, stressed similarly in a smart black suit with a lilac shirt that somehow managed to perfectly match his hair. He led Vexen down and out of the front door where his sleek Mercedes was waiting in perfect clarity for them; it didn't seem like Vexen had even the briefest second to protest before he found himself reclining into a smooth leather interior, the external cold of late November a world away as Marluxia slid so smoothly down the winding road into the rest of town, then peeled off onto the motorway. Vexen, with nothing to say other than questions he was sure Marluxia would answer cryptically if at all, simply watched the blustery landscape outside, rolling hills that he had seen so many times on his way to work and the drivers of cars trailing like ants along their narrow path. Marluxia, on his part, didn't seem particularly to be concentrating on the road; he was gazing idly out of the windscreen with one lazy hand on the wheel. Noticing that Vexen was watching him (albeit apprehensively), he smirked and glanced over.  
"Enjoying yourself?" He asked. To Vexen, he sounded amused - even patronising. He scowled back, resisting the urge to growl.  
"Keep your eye on the road. I don't want any more injuries."  
Marluxia chuckled a little, but he obeyed: his focus returned to driving, just in time to change lanes and overtake a lorry.  
"There are some CDs in the glove compartment, if you'd like."  
Surprised, but not sure why, Vexen duly opened the glove compartment to reveal six or seven albums. The first was classical, which seemed almost too quintessentially Marluxia to be right - but then there was such a strange mixture of blues, seventies pop and progressive rock that Vexen found himself frowning a little, glancing up at Marluxia.  
"Interesting tastes." He said, flicking to some obscure acoustic artist, the likes of whom he had never encountered. Marluxia smiled unreadably.  
"I prefer to judge by individual, rather than stereotype."  
Vexen couldn't help but recall Marluxia's sick obsession with blondes and all the heartbreak and pain that had entailed, all for the sake of collection - but trapped in the car speeding along the motorway at sixty miles an hour with Marluxia driving, he felt oddly vulnerable - so he kept quiet on the matter.  
"Evidently."  
In the end, Vexen opted for the safe choice of the classical album, which played amiably in the background as the car ate up the miles. At about midday Marluxia pulled through a smart retail park and drew up beside a small but clearly upper class restaurant. Marluxia, a true chauffeur, ushered Vexen out of the car and into the lobby of the restaurant. He seemed to know the receptionist, a small Japanese lady; he kissed her once on the cheek and as they spoke in professional tones Vexen couldn't help but notice the way she looked at him, through the lashes of her eyes, as though he were an old love interest of hers, one who had recently become single and interested. It elicited a strange kind of burn in Vexen's stomach, one that he couldn't define, but it was an unpleasant sensation - so he elected instead of watching them to gaze out of the sliding glass doors he had entered, where droplets of rain were just beginning to splash on the ground. But then they were being led to a lounge where wine was served in elegant crystal glasses and the pre-meal appetisers came in the form of stuffed olives with glass cocktail sticks. Vexen sat, awkwardly, on the couch that Marluxia had chosen for them: it was secluded from the other diners in the lounge by a bead curtain, so that he felt both exposed to their stares and trapped in isolation with Marluxia.  
"What would you like to order?"  
Vexen shook his head of morbid thoughts as Marluxia spoke, frowning a little. He was being passed a menu by a smiling waiter. He took it, rather more snappishly than he intended, and examined the meals on offer with a critical eye. It was all things like stuffed partridge with basil and _vin_, served with a _jus_ and a side of shredded pineapple.  
"I'd like to go home and make myself a sandwich," He replied sardonically, setting down the menu almost as soon as he had picked it up. Marluxia smiled, casting his own finger down the long list of meals. Vexen doubted that he hadn't seen what was on offer already, and in likelihood he'd probably already chosen - but it was part of the act, always part of the act with Marluxia.  
"You're not a particular fan of red meat, are you," He murmured after a moment. Wondering how he even knew this, Vexen nodded curtly.  
"I prefer fish or poultry."  
"I suggest the baked salmon," Marluxia said after a few seconds; Vexen had a sneaking suspicion that Marluxia had been planning to say this from the start.  
"Whatever."  
A waiter appeared almost telepathically, and Marluxia ordered in the same professional tone he had used with the receptionist. The waiter smiled and nodded, then was gone, leaving Vexen alone with two glasses of very fine wine and the ever enigmatically-smiling Marluxia.  
"So."  
"If you're hoping for conversation," Vexen sniffed, "You might want to save yourself the disappointment."  
Marluxia laughed. It was a low, amused murmur, one that seemed to imply that there was a second meaning to Vexen's snide remark that only he had understood.  
"Oh, I'm sure I can coax one out of you," He said, and then shamelessly pushed the still-full glass of wine towards Vexen, as if in deliberate mockery. "Have some wine."  
"I'm not falling for that trick again," Vexen snapped, remembering all too clearly the uncontrollable arousal that came with Marluxia and alcohol in conjunction - or more rather the head-splitting hang over the next morning, and the burning ache all over his body.  
"Of course not," Marluxia said lightly, sipping at his own wine. "We all learn our lessons, after all."  
They were quiet for a few more minutes, each to their own private thoughts.  
"Vexen." Marluxia said suddenly; Vexen couldn't help but hate the way that Marluxia said his name so _possessively_, as though all Vexen was to him was an object for easy sexual release.  
"What."  
"I have a proposition for you."  
"No." Vexen said instantly. Marluxia nodded, as though he'd been expecting this churlish rebuttal, and placed his wine glass back down on the smooth mahogany coffee table. Clink. His lips feeling dry, Vexen reluctantly took a sip of his own wine. One glass couldn't hurt; he just had to stop before it seemed like a good idea to go around furiously kissing Marluxia. He took his time examining the complex taste of the drink, its fruity tones and oaky aftertaste - it wasn't until he glanced habitually back up that Marluxia caught his focus, deep blue eyes practically burning with an intensity that was as fitting as it was inexplicable, as obvious as it was nonsensical. Vexen, for a moment, could not look away; behind that fringe of soft pink hair was a heartless creature, conditioned by riches and beauty to see nothing but material gain, and yet...  
There was a depth to Marluxia's eyes that Vexen had never appreciated before. For an instant it seemed an allegory to Marluxia perhaps being more than the shallow narcissist Vexen knew and loathed - but the pits of Marluxia's eyes were bottomless, black and cold.  
Vexen uncomfortably averted his eyes.  
"The house is in dire need of repair," Marluxia said a few minutes later, when Vexen dared to glance back at him: he was looking down now, examining the intricate patterns in the wood on the table.  
"No thanks to you," Vexen said snidely. Marluxia glanced up, but only briefly; the comment made him smile, lean backwards in a stretch that even fully clothed managed somehow to accentuate his muscular figure.  
"I was disinclined to think that you had earned the privilege." He replied. Vexen scowled, habitually.  
"And we have now?"  
Marluxia's lips twisted upwards into the quirk of a smile.  
"You can blame Larxene for the delay. Her terms were, indeed, difficult to adhere to."  
"What do you mean?" Vexen demanded, confused and hating it.  
"I'm sure you'll realise eventually," Marluxia said, the laughter evident in his voice. Vexen fought down the urge to throttle him; then their conversation was stunted for a moment as they were lead by another waiter through into the dining room. More wine was poured; Vexen politely declined a second glass. Maybe one later, but he was not letting himself getting into the same mess as last time.  
"So what were Larxene's terms?" He finally asked, wondering what strange kind of tenancy Marluxia must have been under for it to have been any sort of issue for him. But Marluxia tutted a little, shaking his head.  
"Oh, Vexen, you're barking up completely the wrong tree."  
Vexen scowled and stayed quiet, hoping that perhaps Marluxia would talk about something normal, like the weather or the terrible state of public transport. But no: he returned to the sore subject of the house.  
"There'll need to be some restructural work done by the utility room."  
"Wonderful," Vexen muttered sarcastically, inspecting his wine very closely in case Marluxia, whose hand was worrying close to the bottle, decided to top up his glass while he wasn't looking.  
"Are you staying at the house over Christmas? If not, I can schedule it then." Marluxia said, his voice businesslike. "Larxene and Naminé are visiting their parents and I'm going back to America that week, but I don't want to inconvenience you."  
Tempted to snap about all the inconveniences and worse Marluxia had inflicted on him previously, Vexen frowned.  
"I don't have anything planned."  
"Perhaps you would accompany me to the States?"  
Vexen shook his head, disinclined to admit that he'd never even left Europe, and wasn't ready to go tramping over to the other side of the world even if the trip didn't involve a man he abhorred.  
"No thanks."  
"Alright. I'll find some other time."  
But Marluxia was watching him curiously now, with an expression that was affectionate without being warm, and Vexen busied himself taking another mouthful of wine in the hopes that when he put his glass down again, Marluxia would have given up staring at him. But it just made Marluxia laugh again, quite suddenly, his expression once more unreadable.  
"Vexen, I'm not here to bed you," He said. "Stop worrying so much that one glass of wine will undo you."  
And he refilled Vexen's glass, smiling in a way that could have had a hundred different meanings. Vexen considered a few pointed questions to ask Marluxia, but then their main courses arrived on steaming plates, and he found himself glad of the distraction. They ate quietly, if not in silence; their conversation extended to idle comments on Marluxia's part, and Vexen's curt and unhelpful replies. It wasn't until Vexen was sipping black coffee that he glanced up at Marluxia - gazing impassively out of the window behind him - and finally spoke without being spoken to.  
"So what's this all for, then?"  
Marluxia smiled imperceptibly.  
"I thought you might like a treat."  
Vexen stated at the dregs of coffee in the bottom of his porcelain cup. He had not once been harassed or verbally abused since leaving the house; he was not drunk, trapped beneath Marluxia's body or even handcuffed - he had simply eaten Sunday lunch with in charming company.  
"You don't need to be so convinced I'm up to something," Marluxia was saying as he handed the waitress who had suddenly popped up a credit card. "I might honestly not have ulterior motives, you know."  
And he took Vexen outside, where the sun spangled on the glistening droplets of water from the recent shower, and drove him home.


	20. 19 Unexpectation

Vexen, feeling obliged to eat even though he had been thoroughly stuffed with fine food, quickly made a sandwich and a cup of tea (which seemed to sort of pale in comparison to his lunch) and wandered into the sitting room, where a few of his dusty old books were stuffed onto the very end of the bookshelf. Movement was still awkward with his casts, but Vexen had become accustomed to reduced dexterity in his left hand, and now the bones in his leg were becoming strong enough for him to, however briefly, put his weight on them. He was healing.  
Flicking on the light, because even though the sun hadn't set yet it didn't look like it would grace him with its company for long, he hobbled over to the sofa and flopped down on it, opening up his book on the first page and beginning to read. He hadn't read much lately, what with a combination of work and worries, which was probably a mistake - soon he found himself more relaxed than he'd felt in some time (not counting Marluxia's irritating ability to make him forget all other more pressing troubles, because he also simultaneously made every muscle in Vexen's body instinctively tighten). He read until the sun was sleeping and his eyelids felt heavy; then he returned his book to the shelf, put his plate and mug in the dishwasher, and made his way painstakingly upstairs. He was idly contemplating Marluxia and his curious absence from the house when he heard something that sounded suspiciously like a sob sound from Larxene's room.  
Her door was slightly ajar; knowing that this was most likely a very bad idea, Vexen knocked once then cautiously pushed the door open.  
"N-Naminé?"  
"Sorry, it's me," He said, trying to make his voice softer than its usual grating tones, as he rounded the door handle to the sight of Larxene wrapped in her duvet, a pillow in her arms and an open photo album clenched tightly in her hands. Her unmade face was streaked with tears, her nose red and running. Her short, shockingly blonde hair hung in her puffy eyes, which seemed somehow sunken, listlessly tired. It was so unlike the Larxene that Vexen was used to that he took something of a double take - and stalled he didn't realise that the pillow was flying at him until it hit him squarely in the face.  
"_Get out_!"  
Vexen didn't, partly because Larxene looked utterly broken, but mostly because the pillow attack had made him drop his crutches, and he was scrambling to pick them up before she threw anything more dangerous.  
"Are you alright?"  
"_Obviously not_!" Larxene screeched, picking up a heavy book from her bedside table. "_Get out, get out get out getoutgetout_!"  
Vexen managed to duck this time as the book came hurtling towards him; he felt it rush through his hair just inches from his head, and then it had slammed into the door behind him, pages flurrying as the book fell.  
"You're upset," Vexen stated stupidly once he'd recovered, realising with a jolt that Larxene was now trying to wrest the bedside lamp from its socket. "What's wrong?"  
"You fucking _know_ what's wrong!" Larxene squealed, but her voice was cracking. She tugged at the cable a few more times, but it didn't break loose - then Vexen had crossed the room in a few awkward strides and was prising it away from her. What was he doing here, exactly? Larxene would rather kill him than confide in him. But she looked so heartbroken... Vexen knew that look. He knew that very emotion.  
"Naminé, isn't it," He said softly, recalling the innocent little girl who nonetheless seemed to possess the ability to hopelessly crush hearts and dreams.  
Larxene hissed under her breath, grabbing the photo album and opening it at a random page. Vexen set down the lamp, and came to sit beside her. The photographs - mostly of Naminé - were well taken, their subject photogenic.  
"She's beautiful, isn't she," Larxene said dully, flipping a page. Vexen shrugged. In his opinion, Naminé had a very plain appearance - and was none the worse for it.  
"She's pretty, I suppose."  
Larxene brushed her fingers over one particular photograph of Naminé in pyjamas at the breakfast table, toast in mouth and a hot water bottle in her hands. She looked surprised, but not unpleasantly so; the effect was endearing in its sheer innocence.  
"She knows now," Larxene said abruptly, her voice still thick from the tears that had been choking her. Coming from her mouth the tone of her voice sounded odd, out of place. Larxene was sharp and vicious, not dulled and blurred by the sadness of unrequited love. "She knows how much I love her. And... what I did to keep her."  
Vexen was tempted to ask, but he refrained; instead he bravely rested his working hand on Larxene's shoulder. She jumped a little at the contact, but amazingly did not even brush him away.  
"But she forgave you, didn't she? She's still your friend."  
But Larxene shook her head.  
"I can't stand this," She said, "I can't bear just being her friend when I want her to be so much more..."  
"How long have you loved her?" Vexen asked, unsure what to say. He had hardly even been expecting Larxene to open up in the slightest - all he knew was that as much as she hated him, he couldn't leave her to cry alone in her room. As humiliating as it would have been to resort to Larxene for comfort, Vexen knew he would have wanted the same treatment.  
"Years," Larxene muttered. "Ever since I first met her."  
"You still managed to be friends with her then," Vexen mused. This seemed to stall Larxene - but then she just groaned a little, forcefully flipping the next page of her precious album.  
"That was before she knew. Before all this shit happened. Before she slept with _you_."  
Vexen ignored the venom in Larxene's words, instead gently stroking her back a little as she hiccoughed miserably.  
"You don't want to lose her as a friend too, do you?" He asked, finally. "I mean, Naminé as just a friend is better than no Naminé at all."  
"You don't understand how I feel," Larxene hissed accusingly - but actually, Vexen inwardly thought that he knew much more than Larxene gave him credit for.  
"It's not worth it," He said anyway. When Larxene looked at him expectantly and even in confusion, he continued. "I mean, you've been imagining what having Naminé as a lover would be like for years, right? You've constructed your own dream world of how you want things to be, and... I can't help but think that in the end if you ever did get with her, you'd just find yourself disappointed."  
Larxene snarled, snapping her album shut and throwing it furiously at the floor.  
"You don't understand!"  
Ignoring the voice in his head telling him that Larxene was acting like a small child, Vexen picked up the book again, an awkward motion when attempted with his left hand.  
"I mean, what you have with Naminé right now is real, and... and it's special. You're best friends. To go chasing an impossible dream when you're risking a relationship like that... it seems kind of stupid to me."  
Evidently that was the wrong thing to say, because suddenly there was a scuffle and Larxene had launched herself at him, throwing him down onto the bed so that his head knocked painfully against the radiator. She reached up to punch him in the face, but he dodged just in time, so that all she did was hit his hair, tugging uncomfortably if not painfully at his roots.  
"Ouch! What was that for-?"  
"You don't fucking understand!" Larxene screamed, throwing another punch - but Vexen was prepared, and he managed to catch her fist and deflect it so it didn't cause his nose severe damage. Larxene was strong, but she was also recklessly aggravated, so provided less resistance than Vexen expected when he pushed her over so she was the one lying on her back, not him.  
"I'm just trying to help!" He hissed back as Larxene struggled against him - it was only a matter of minutes before she had overpowered him again, and they were battling limb to limb to gain control. Somewhere along the line, Vexen forgot what he was even trying to do; he just knew that whatever they were fighting for, he had to win. He also, vaguely, recognised that with broken limbs fighting with an extremely vicious young woman was probably not such a good idea.  
However, he did not have much time to ponder this, because the next thing he knew his legs were tangled between Larxene's and her nose was less than an inch away from his, so close in proximity that he could feel her breaths fumbling from her lips brush his face. He hadn't realised until that moment that somewhere her fist had become tightly wound in his hair, that her eyes were burning with a ferocity that couldn't quite be accounted for by her anger, that even though her eyebrows were furrowed there was a slight upward quirk to her lips - and that Vexen desperately wanted to kiss her.  
Larxene took this brief hesitance to throw Vexen's balance off, to push him up and down again at the foot of the bed. And suddenly she was laughing and he was breathless, and some primitive part of Vexen's brain was telling him that it didn't matter that he was half covered in casts; the only important thing was trapping Larxene beneath him, defeating her, dominating her.  
He rolled them over in some feat of strength he didn't even know he was capable of, and in a flurry of bedding and flying hair they fell from the bed, and landed with a crash on the floor. Larxene snapped angrily at his face, but she was panting heavily now, her back arching in ways that made Vexen just want to _touch_ her, no matter the consequences.  
"Oh, come on, Vexen," She was saying between gasps, "That was _pathetic_. Haven't you got anything better than that?"  
He launched his full weight at her, inextricably caught against her body, and they tumbled against the bedside table, which toppled over, narrowly missing Larxene's head.  
"Fuck... cool it, will you?"  
"You're the one who attacked me!" Vexen snapped back, but he was more interested in contemplating the way that Larxene's head was tilted back, exposing her neck.  
"All words and no action," Larxene scoffed, and it wasn't until Vexen had roughly grabbed her wrists (ignoring the pain that the motion sent shooting up his left arm) and pinned her beneath him that he realised she was actually _goading_ him - and that whatever trap she was laying, he didn't mind falling for it.  
She was laughing, with neither care nor restraint. Vexen growled at her laughing face.  
"So you think you can do better this time, huh?"  
Hell, Vexen _knew_ he could do better. The more pressing question was how on Earth, now he thought about it, he had managed to be in Larxene's bedroom and more importantly on top of Larxene herself - and apparently on the brink of engaging in sexual intercourse.  
"We both need the distraction," Larxene was saying, throatily, and Vexen just managed to pull himself away before he lost his mind completely.  
"You think I'm useless," He said accusingly, attempting desperately to quash the arousal that had taken hold of his body. "You hate me. Why do you want to sleep with me all of a sudden?"  
He didn't receive an answer - Larxene, freed from her restraints, lunged at him again, knocking him to the floor again and saddling his waist.  
"Well, we can play fight all evening if you like."  
Too surprised to act immediately, Vexen didn't move and then Larxene was gone, pulling herself away.  
"Oh, fuck you. You come into my room and you won't even let me fuck you."  
"That's because you've never expressed any desire to "fuck me" before, except when exceptionally drunk," Vexen huffed, reaching for his crutches. Larxene glared at him disbelievingly.  
"Yeah, well, Naminé wasn't ever interested in you until you became such a miserable fucker that you couldn't even stop yourself breaking down in front of her."  
"That's different!"  
"How is it?" Larxene challenged. "God, Vexen, I give you a chance to prove yourself and have a bit of fun, and you want to mope about how pathetic I think you are instead. It's like you _want_ to be miserable."  
Vexen roughly grabbed his crutches, propped himself back up again. His limbs had begun to ache. And Larxene was still staring at him from the bed, an almost accusing look in her eyes.  
"Marluxia tells me that you can be quite lovely in bed with the right persuasion."  
"Yeah, well," Vexen replied flatly, "Marluxia had me in handcuffs."  
There was a split second hesitance in Larxene's eyes - just long enough for Vexen to step forwards, grab the hair at the back of Larxene's neck, and pull her forwards into a furious kiss.  
He let gravity do the rest of the work, falling forwards onto her (although that put him in the rather awkward position of lying on the bed with his feet still on the floor) - but with their mouths still locked together, Larxene solved that problem by twisting incomprehensibly and knocking them both down again onto the floor.  
"Handcuffs?" She said as they broke apart, breathing heavily, like they were just talking about the weather at the breakfast table, and her hands weren't already fiddling with the buttons on Vexen's shirt. Vexen irritably batted her away, pressing her back down against the rumpled duvet.  
"Yes, handcuffs, no, it wasn't consensual, and no, I don't want to talk about it."  
And before she could protest, question or argue, he fell upon her once again, holding her down with every ounce of strength he had, biting her lip as she scratched through his shirt at his arms. He found himself spending every second struggling for dominance, bearing his weight against Larxene's straining muscles, rolling and kicking in some kind of desperate, feverish passion. Larxene's mouth left burning sensations on his lips, his jaw, his neck; she pulled hairs from his head as he twisted her arm uncomfortably behind her. She had him backed up against the wall, he recklessly knocked her head against the corner of the wardrobe; all the while clothes seemed simply to disintegrate in a tangle of greedy fingers and desire for skin.  
Eventually what sobered Vexen to his situation was not the resurfacing memories of his last sexual encounter with Larxene: nor was it the considerable pain sparking in the left side of his body. No, it was the realisation that Larxene was sliding her bra from her shoulders and in his entire adult life, Vexen had never actually seen a woman naked.  
"Wait," He said, his voice distant somehow, almost drunken. "Wait."  
"You're not copping out now, are you?" Larxene asked disbelievingly; her hands had been at Vexen's belt, but now she pulled away, glaring venomously. In an instant she was pulling the strap of her bra back up her arm. "You fucking coward, that's so _typical_-"  
Wordlessly, Vexen lurched forwards to take the thin slip of fabric in his hand - it was elasticated, which had hadn't expected - although it was obvious, really. He dropped it back down from Larxene's shoulder, running the very tips of his fingertips across her flesh as though he feared it might open up and bite him.  
"No," He said, wondering who was speaking because he didn't remember asking to open his mouth; "No, I just..."  
Larxene had leaned back, an amused smirk creeping over her face.  
"You have no idea what you're doing, do you?" She asked, tauntingly, with such malicious humour that Vexen physically winced. What he wanted to say was that if this was the first time he was witnessing breasts in the flesh, he wanted to savour the moment - but he feared too much that Larxene would laugh, or worse rebuke him. The sheer insanity of his actions kept striking him, making him falter; and every second he hesitated was a chance for Larxene to realise how utterly stupid this was too, pull her clothes back on and throw him out.  
"Sh-shut up."  
Larxene giggled, lounging with her spine arched as Vexen cast his trembling fingers over her skin. And apparently Naminé wasn't the only thing that could halt Vexen's furiously overworking mind - because when Larxene's bra fell away, not even the knowledge that this was _Larxene_ and he was _Vexen_ and it was a lazy Sunday afternoon and he had come here hoping to comfort and had somehow wound up half naked on the floor staring at her chest seemed to bear any significance to his current situation.  
"Come on, old man. If all I wanted you to do was gape, I would have given you a photograph."  
Something clicked in Vexen's head, something that said _sex_, and his hand as though autonomously fell a few inches to cup Larxene's breast, warm, heavy velveteen and utterly perfect. He fought down a gasp just as he battled Larxene onto her back to kneel above her, to drink in every aspect of her lithe figure, to drag his teeth across her neck and feel her feet kick against his thighs.  
"I'm not an _old man_."  
"Prove it."  
Larxene naked was a softer creature; Vexen kissed her deeply as she pushed his boxers down to his knees with her toes (how did she _do_ that? Either she was exceptionally dexterous or had had a lot of practice) and he scrabbled gracelessly at her underwear. Her hands were at his shoulders, scratching almost feverishly at him, and Vexen had little doubt that he would come out of this experience not inconsiderably bruised.  
"You have freckles on your shoulders, you know that?"  
"It has come to my attention, yes."  
"That's so weird."  
Vexen kissed her again to shut her up, which might have been meant as punishment but certainly didn't displease her at all; it wasn't until her hands were pushing him away instead of pulling him close that he even thought to stop and realise how utterly naked he was.  
"Lube."  
"Huh?"  
"Lubrication," Larxene repeated, enunciating every syllable. She stood gracefully, as though she weren't naked and already speckled with marks from Vexen's teeth. "Unless you _want_ to go dry?"  
"I thought that-" Vexen began, shifting uncomfortably and wondering how best to shield his genitalia without groping himself, but then he realised that compared to Larxene he knew nothing about sex - so it was probably best to just go along with whatever she decided to do. "Well, won't we need a condom?"  
Larxene laughed derisively, pausing for a moment as she rummaged in one of her drawers.  
"Oh, Vexen. You're such a maiden." She snorted, holding up some kind of medication which Vexen didn't immediately recognise. "I'm on the pill."  
"But-" Vexen protested, but Larxene was right beside him again, one slim finger pressing quite brutally against his lips.  
"Be quiet. You can do so much better with your mouth than speak."  
Whether Larxene was complimenting his kissing technique or insulting his voice, Vexen wasn't quite sure - but something in her tone of voice made him obey her orders, sitting quite complacently on the floor as she produced a small, clear bottle from her drawer.  
"And get up on the bed, I don't trust you on the floor just yet."  
Silently Vexen stood; but while he was calculating some way of getting onto the bed without putting weight on his left leg or looking like a complete idiot, Larxene let out an inhuman shriek of laughter and launched herself into him, knocking him onto the mattress.  
"You are _funny_," She cooed condescendingly, dropping the bottle by his head and rolling off him, giving him just the few seconds he needed to jump onto her again, pinning her down. She laughed as though she had planned this all, grabbing his hair and pulling him down into a kiss that knocked their teeth together and drew blood that mingled, metallic and bitter, on their lips. And she growled something that sounded a little like "Ready?" into his throat, to which Vexen's mind was hung between _would you stop if I weren't?_ and _yesyesyes_, and suddenly her delicate fingers were _on_ him, simultaneously burning and ice cold, and he couldn't stop the groan, or his body without his consent jerking forwards against her. To silence her snorts of laughter he found the sinew of her neck and bit, hard: he seemed to be successful because she gasped sharply, body tensing beneath him.  
"Jesus!"  
"Vexen, actually," Vexen replied flatly, taking a moment to inspect the welts he'd left in Larxene's skin before biting again, albeit a little more tenderly, at her shoulder. Her skin was flush, quite delicious to bruise and marr with tongues and fingernails; it was perhaps the only thing that kept Vexen completely falling apart at her touch. Time itself seemed to pause for the mindless friction of skin to skin, frenzied and confused; Vexen didn't even know what he was doing when he brushed Larxene's hands aside, caught her in a burning glare as his fingers found hold on her body, at her entrance, and oh God oh God oh _God_ he might have been fucking her but she was the one making him beg wordlessly for more, in perfect control of his every thought, a curving, grinning vessel for sexual release - and release was all that he craved, from the heat and the tension and the primitive, carnal desire, and the wonderful cage of flesh that she had trapped him in. And release it _was_, like someone who had been mercilessly holding his gut tightly in their fist had finally let go, and like every cell of his body had suddenly exploded in a blaze of passion.  
"Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God."  
Larxene laughed at him, stretching and wiggling her toes. She was out of breath, but she certainly wasn't out of _control_, Vexen noted with an air of resignation.  
"Some things never change, huh."  
Vexen made do with burying his head somewhere in the pillows next to hers so she couldn't see his face, at least until he'd stopped gasping.  
"You'd better be good with your fingers, old man."  
Vexen began at first the snapshot reaction of "_don't call me old man!_", but once his head caught up with his emotions, confusion seemed like more of an appropriate response.  
"What?"  
"You don't think you're just going to get away with being the only one who came," Larxene said, her voice sounding both amused and agitated. "Since I may as well hang an Out of Order sign on your cock for the time being, you'd better make use of those ridiculously long fingers of yours."  
Vexen stared at her for a moment, disbelievingly. Then he realised that she was actually serious.  
"You can use your mouth if you like."  
Deciding that "but my semen is everywhere" probably wasn't going to cut it as an excuse, Vexen experimentally flexed his right hand, taking a moment to drink in Larxene's dishevelled, but still somehow beautiful, appearance.  
"Not wearing make up suits you," He said suddenly; whether this was an attempt to distract Larxene for a moment or a sincere observation he wasn't sure - but it was enough in that Larxene frowned at his face for a moment as he trailed his palm across her stomach, then with his index and middle fingers pressed as deeply as he could manage inside her. She gasped, which meant he must have done something right - and judging by the tightness of her grip in his hair, and the pressure against his upper legs when she pressed her feet solidly against his skin, knees tucked up by her chest, he managed somehow to locate her most sensitive areas - assisted, admittedly, by Larxene's own insistent hands, and helpful hisses mostly along the lines of "There, you idiot! _There_!". But he must have been doing something right, because slowly but surely Larxene was falling apart, and biting on her ear seemed to shut her up satisfactorily; and finally he felt her tense against him, nails gouging painfully into his skull. And then she was limp, sighing, pulling him none too gently down onto her chest.  
"Not bad," Was her verdict once she'd caught her breath; "You're no Marluxia, but you're not bad."  
"Thank you," Vexen replied tersely, wondering what to do with his right hand. She laughed cruelly, stretching beneath him. And they lay together in silence for a few minutes, each to their own thoughts. It was Larxene who spoke first, in a voice more thoughtful than Vexen had expected.  
"I hate you."  
"I believe we had already established that."  
Larxene reached, lazily, out to her askew bedside drawer, pulling out a packet of face wipes.  
"These'll do for now. Do you want to know why I hate you?"  
"Go on. Humour me," Vexen said flatly, gladly wiping away the worst of the mess. Larxene watched him, with eyes that were filled half with amusement, and half with a strange, unfamiliar kind of loathing.  
"I hate you because you're always right," She said. Vexen opened his mouth to protest, but she stopped him with the palm of her hand. "I hate you because you are such an insufferable know it all, because you have to dissect every tiny little thing until there isn't even a shred of mystery or excitement left, or else you hate it."  
Vexen wanted to disagree - but there was a fierceness in Larxene's eyes, one he wouldn't have dared argue with even if he could.  
"And I hate you because when you try to insult people, you always bring up those uncomfortable truths that are best left buried. The ones that really hurt. And you don't even realise it; you're just trying to express how angry you are."  
Vexen, personally, wasn't sure if Larxene was allowed to complain about uncomfortable truths, if her love of insinuating that Vexen didn't have any friends was anything to go by. But he didn't speak, partly because Larxene didn't sound finished, and partly because she was still pressing her hand to his face.  
"And I hate you because when you try to give me advice it's always the last thing that I would ever lower myself to doing - but at the end of the day, it's always the right thing to do. Because you're such a socially inept, hateful, argumentative, hopeless geek - but when push comes to shove... you're not such a bad guy."  
And as promptly as she had spoken, she shoved Vexen away from her, sliding for the bed.  
"I need a shower."  
She located a towel, wrapped it around her lithe body, and was gone.


	21. 20 Just the Handcuffs

By coincidence, Naminé returned to the house after an afternoon drawing local landmarks with her college friends just as Marluxia drew up in the driveway in his Mercedes. It was dark; only the headlights from the car and the light from Larxene's window gave any illumination to the steps up to the front door.  
"Looks like the lamp needs replacing," Marluxia murmured as he slotted his key into the lock. Naminé glanced up at the light over the door, its plastic frame cracking and discoloured from age. Like a lot of things in the house, she had never known it to work.  
"Yeah, I guess."  
She followed Marluxia inside to the tune of something on the radio, blushing when he paused beside her to remove her heavy winter coat, hands running luxuriously across her shoulderblades. He himself was wearing the same long, leather coat that he had been wearing when he'd first moved in; aside from a slight crumpled texture to its folds, it seemed exactly the same as it had always been. In the halflight of the hallway, Naminé found herself similarly studying Marluxia; he seemed just a little older now than he had before, whether it was in the deepness of his eyes or the way he stood, staring simultaneously at a framed photograph hanging crooked on the wall and nothing in particular. Of course, things had changed so much in the year he had been sleeping in the spare room at the back of the house - from Vexen's tragic fall from grace to the cracking of Larxene and Naminé's perfect friendship - but Marluxia seemed somehow unscathed by their worldly troubles, some unearthly creature who observed but was never involved.  
"Sweetheart, did your mother never tell you it was rude to stare?"  
It had only occurred to Naminé then that she had no basis on which to judge Marluxia; although they had lived together this long, even shared a bed, she did not _know_ the other man - not like she knew Larxene's every quirk and foible, or Vexen in his sweet, dysfunctional predictability.  
"Sorry, I was just thinking."  
Marluxia was truly an enigma. He might have changed, he might have been exactly the same - Naminé did not know. She could not know.  
"Of anything in particular?"  
Naminé was observant, but for every detail she picked out of Marluxia's appearance and actions there was another to contradict it, more impossible puzzles to solve.  
"Just about us. You. Larxene and Vexen."  
Marluxia hummed a little, and shrugged off his coat. Beneath it, he was sporting a smart lilac dress shirt, buttons open at his neck.  
"Of course."  
"It's all so confusing," Naminé said, wandering over to turn down the radio. "Sometimes I think the only thing I can guarantee is that Larxene and Vexen hate each other."  
Marluxia laughed quite suddenly, pointing up to the ceiling.  
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure."  
But Naminé didn't understand what he meant - all she could hear over the radio was the sound of Vexen and Larxene arguing; she couldn't even make out the words. Then there was a crash, and a yell. Naminé started forwards, just as there was another thunk, louder, and indistinct cries of anger. But Marluxia stopped her as she reached the first step.  
"Perhaps we should leave them to it."  
"But Vexen's no match for Larxene! She'll rip him to shreds-!"  
But Marluxia simply steered her into the kitchen, turning the radio up again to drown out the chaos upstairs.  
"A drink, maybe?"  
"That sounded a lot like furniture falling over," Naminé said, ignoring Marluxia. "He could be hurt-"  
But she was cut off quite suddenly by a long, drawn out moan.  
"Oh."  
"Perhaps we should leave them to it." Marluxia said again, on his lips something of a smile. He had somewhere obtained a bottle of red wine, from which he poured two glasses. Naminé - who never really drank much - accepted it a little warily, remembering what had happened the last time that Marluxia had offered somebody a drink in this kitchen.  
"I'll just have the one."  
Marluxia nodded, the half-smile barely faltering on his lips.  
"Fair enough."  
He sat down, elegant and poised as always. Upstairs something hit the wall and made the letters on the note board shiver. Naminé hung by the doorway, wine glass in hand, nervous. The kitchen seemed almost unrecognisable now: the tacky work surfaces had been replaced by glass, the perpetually dripping tap now shiny and new. Marluxia had had most of the dying appliances that came with the house replaced too; they were now hidden in discrete corners, gleaming. Everything worked. It was strange.  
"Something on your mind, sweetheart?"  
"I don't know anything about you," Naminé blurted out without really realising she was speaking. Before she could apologise, Marluxia hummed a little and stood suddenly.  
"There are very few people who do."  
"You like it that way, don't you?" Naminé asked as Marluxia made for the fridge.  
"People judge me for who I am, not who I was," He said at length as he pulled out a collection of foodstuffs. "And I like to keep it that way."  
Naminé thought back to her life with Larxene, all those years spent together sharing memories.  
"I guess." And then: "Is that why you moved here? You know, from America?"  
"I'm surprised I've stayed here even this long," Marluxia said, but then he glanced up to the ceiling, where Vexen and Larxene appeared to have forgotten that anybody else in the universe actually existed. "Well."  
"Well?"  
Perhaps were it not for her artistic tendencies and observant nature, Naminé wouldn't have caught the brief flash of melancholy in his eyes as his focus moved from the ceiling to the unruly garden, dead now, outside. And she wouldn't have noticed his immaculate posture falter for the slightest of seconds.  
"Circumstances have... changed."  
Naminé looked around the gleaming new kitchen, a swish combination of the modern and the retro. And she thought about eating pizza on the staircase with Larxene. And she thought about wine, and the consequences of the wine, and Marluxia's habit for promiscuity, and the moans echoing from upstairs.  
"You did this because you slept with us all, didn't you?"  
And Marluxia was again the perfect, flawlessly inhuman creature that Naminé had always known, laughing gracefully at he set the cooker burning and poured a healthy dose of olive oil into the wok.  
"Clever girl."  
Naminé laughed too, shaking her head.  
"You're strange."  
"There's no fun in life if I can't keep you guessing, is there?"  
The groans upstairs were beginning to die down now, replaced by the sizzle of frying meat and onions.  
"I didn't know you cooked," Naminé said, walking over. She stopped by the peninsula unit to top up her wine glass, because it had such a pleasant aftertaste as it slipped down her throat, before standing on her tiptoes to watch Marluxia cooking over his shoulder.  
"Sometimes I like to remind myself what mediocre food tastes like."  
"I'm sure you're a good cook," Naminé assured him. But Marluxia just shrugged dismissively.  
"I've never had any need to be one."  
Although she knew that Marluxia never ate with the girls, Naminé had never known what he did for meals about the house - there was usually a collection of ingredients in his corner of the fridge, but equally he was rarely around the house during meal-times - Naminé guessed that he ate out frequently, and didn't have much of a routine for the times he cooked for himself.  
"I guess not."  
Marluxia popped back to the fridge for a moment to collect a bottle of lemon juice that Naminé didn't even know they had.  
"Vexen, however, severely needs to learn that coffee is not an acceptable substitute for decent food."  
"He is rather thin, isn't he," Naminé murmured, following Marluxia around the kitchen.  
"Worryingly so." Marluxia replied. "At least he's eating a little more with those casts. The doctor told him he was underweight, I suppose."  
And they watched the mince brown in silence, until Marluxia threw in the rest of the vegetables and tossed them around until they were warmed though, and served the mixture into two bowls.  
"Here you go, darling."  
"Thank you."  
Naminé thought that perhaps they'd eat together, but Marluxia left the room as quickly as he had come, leaving her alone with the hasty meal and the half-full bottle of wine.  
Upstairs, she could just make out the shower beginning to run. 

* * *

Vexen was hardly surprised the next morning when he woke early in Larxene's room to find himself alone. What was unexpected was the fact that the dip in the mattress beside him was still warm, and that his arms half-remembered a night spent looped around the younger woman's naked frame.  
He moved stiffly to stand, collecting his crutches and awkwardly assembling his clothes before painstakingly making his way downstairs in the hopes of breakfast. Larxene was in the kitchen, dressed only in clean underpants and a vest, and seemed somehow softer as she stood sentinel by the toaster. As Vexen clattered in, she glanced up, and affectionately rolled her eyes.  
"Good morning, darling."  
Vexen managed a surprised hello in return, and for a few minutes they choreographed an awkward dance around each other as Larxene buttered toast and Vexen's stiff fingers remembered how to brew coffee.  
"So I was thinking about last night."  
"Funny. Me too."  
Larxene, perching her bottom on the work surface like there wasn't a perfectly adequate kitchen table just a few feet away, laughed.  
"Yet another way in which you'd be better suited to a vagina."  
"What?"  
But Larxene just shook her head, waving her bitten toast around a little.  
"Never mind. I'm fucking freezing, you know that? But I didn't want to spend forever picking out clothes when you were bound to wake up at any second."  
"I thought we were talking about last night," Vexen, at the kettle, said, hoping it wasn't obvious that last night was the only thing he wanted to talk about.  
"I'm getting there. Give me a minute to bitch about all my fucking goosebumps."  
"Alright."  
Larxene took a deep breath as though she was dragging intoxicating fumes from a cigarette, and exhaled.  
"So I was thinking about last night."  
"Yes?"  
"And I think we should hook up more."  
Even if Vexen had been hoping for congratulations, in truth all he'd expected was some kind of derogatory statement about a performance that even he could admit was underwhelming.  
"R-really?"  
"No need to sound so surprised. I mean, obviously you're inexperienced and about as kinky as my Grandmother, but Marluxia's right. You're a fast learner."  
"I... don't know whether to be offended or pleased with that verdict."  
Larxene laughed again, set down her now empty plate and waltzed over, cupping her hands around Vexen's neck.  
"Now all you need to do is get yourself a hair cut and stop dressing like a tramp... and hey, you might even be mildly attractive one day."  
And she bumped her stomach against Vexen's, the laughter in her eyes, and kissed his lips.  
"And stop using that cheap shower gel. You smell like a dishwasher: hygienic, but still unpleasant."  
With that advice, she swept away, grabbing milk from the fridge and drinking straight from the carton (did _everybody_ do that?). Vexen settled for watching her move effortlessly about the kitchen, a woman as fluid as she was brutal.  
"I feel like you're running circles around me," He said finally as Larxene dumped herself into her chair by the radiator, stretching like a cat.  
"And, surprisingly, I'm enjoying it."  
Vexen shifted on his crutches, already calculating how long it would take him to dress, and how soon he'd have to leave to catch the seven fifty train.  
"Well. Thanks for the advice. And the sex."  
Larxene giggled.  
"Any time."  
Feeling awkward, but not sure why, Vexen nodded, and made his was out into the hallway. Naminé was just coming downstairs, looking sleepy.  
"Morning, Vexen."  
"Morning, Naminé."  
"How are you?"  
"I'm... I'm okay."  
Naminé glanced at the threadbare carpet and smiled sweetly, and Vexen wanted to hug her, possibly forever.  
"Well, it's better than just being fine, I suppose." She murmured. And then: "I know what you did with Larxene last night."  
"Oh."  
Vexen wasn't sure what else he could say.  
"I don't mind," She continued, and as she walked past her fingers caught Vexen's. "As long as you don't date her, I guess. Because that would be weird."  
"Don't worry, I don't think there's any danger of that." Vexen replied. "Honestly. I think she'd rather jump off a cliff than be my boyfriend. And. Uh. Vice versa, actually."  
To Vexen's surprise, Naminé laughed a little.  
"Well, you've pretty much already done that, so..."  
"Yeah, I think I'm pretty safe from her charms."  
Outside, the winter sun was shining weakly but not without enthusiasm, and Vexen couldn't stop himself feeling just the slightest bit optimistic as he trudged upstairs to his room and readied himself for work. 

* * *

"Y'know, I always wanted a swing in the garden."  
Some time late in the afternoon it had begun to drizzle lightly, the sky grey but still luminescent, and Larxene and Naminé had made themselves a nest in amongst Naminé's bedding to watch the clouds draw in over the beautiful valley sprawling far below them.  
"Really? Why's that?"  
Larxene had been in a good mood all day. She had kissed Marluxia lavishly when he appeared from the bathroom in nothing but a towel around midday, laughed every time Naminé spoke (even when she hadn't said anything funny, but this was normal for Good Mood Larxene) and even made something vaguely resembling soup for everybody at lunchtime. She joked that she'd go give Vexen a flask of it, but not knowing the address of his workplace, except that it was quite a distance away, she instead poured some into a jug and left it in the fridge, just in case.  
"I dunno. To swing on, I guess. My Mum had one in the garden when I was little, and I used to sit on it all the time. Sometimes swing so high my brother couldn't catch me. For nostalgia's sake, I suppose."  
"Maybe once we've sorted the house out," Naminé said, gazing out across the horizon.  
"Well, with Marluxia throwing his money around that might actually get done one day," Larxene mused. "Never did find out why he suddenly decided to just renovate the kitchen like that... I guess he was getting as pissed off as I was at that stupid dripping tap."  
Naminé just smiled privately to herself, and Larxene for lack of understanding returned to staring out over the hills. The rain was falling in streams now, splashing and dripping onto the window. And with the sun setting over the horizon now the winter seemed so much colder.  
"So I was talking to Vexen last night," Larxene said suddenly, something in her voice almost faraway. Naminé glanced up from picking her nails, surprised.  
"Really? It sounded a lot like you were just screaming at him to me."  
"Well, yeah, I was screaming at him as well. But amazingly, we also managed to have a civilised conversation. Even if this wasn't actually part of it. Point is, you know Marluxia fucked him ages ago?"  
Naminé didn't remember Vexen actually sleeping with Marluxia, but she remembered finding out, and she very definitely remembered finding out after they'd drunkenly had sex in her bed.  
"Yeah?"  
"Well, I mentioned it last night, and..." Larxene paused momentarily, as though for once actually contemplating her words. "How much do you know about it?"  
Naminé shrugged a little.  
"We never really talked about it."  
"Huh."  
"Why?"  
"Well, it's just that he said something about- well, I just wondered if he'd talked to you about it."  
Naminé shook her head.  
"What did he say?"  
"I'm not sure if I should tell you."  
"That's never stopped you before," Naminé shrewdly pointed out, stretching until her feet fell off the other side of the bed. Larxene rolled over onto her back, languidly, and the two girls were so close as to be almost touching.  
"Look, he said it wasn't consensual. I just wondered if he'd told you."  
Suddenly Naminé's throat felt unpleasantly dry.  
"No," She heard herself saying distantly, "He didn't mention it."  
"I wouldn't put it past Vexen to make a big deal out of nothing," Larxene was saying, but her voice sounded a little strangled to Naminé's sensitive ears. "I mean, Marluxia's forward enough that he'd probably get his knickers in a twist and all."  
Naminé slowly sat up, a strange and sickening emotion curling in her stomach.  
"What else did he say?"  
"I can't remember, I was thinking about other things," Larxene said a little defensively. "Something about handcuffs. I dunno."  
For a while, neither of them spoke.  
"It was probably nothing," Larxene announced quite suddenly, also sitting up. "You know what Vexen's like."  
But Naminé had already recalled every conversation, every accusation, every insistence Vexen made that he was too ugly, too irritable, too _blonde_...  
"No," She said, amazed that the word even escaped her throat, "No, I don't think it was."  
She stood mechanically, feeling her legs slide from the bed and her centre of gravity shift without really controlling her limbs.  
"I need to talk to Marluxia."  
But Larxene grabbed her arm and pulled her back down onto the bed.  
"He's out at the moment. And anyway, that's a ridiculously bad idea. If he _did_ rape Vexen-"  
"Don't say that," Naminé found herself whimpering. "Oh God, don't say that."  
Marluxia was supposed to be a sweet if enigmatic man; he was perhaps sexually promiscuous but otherwise harmless. The household just didn't _work_ otherwise, without Larxene a slutty bitch and Vexen hopelessly antisocial and Marluxia quietly attractive and forever mysterious. It changed his motivations for sleeping with Naminé - it changed his motivations for sleeping with _everybody_. It changed too much.  
"Maybe it was just the handcuffs."  
"Yeah," Larxene agreed, voice flat. "That was probably it."  
"I don't think Vexen would like handcuffs."  
"No."  
"No."  
And once the girls had considered this in their own private thoughts for a few moments, the conversation progressed onwards. Of course, that was it. It would be perfectly understandable that Vexen wouldn't want to be handcuffed, and Marluxia had just got a little carried away, and it was just too easy to interpret Vexen's words wrongly. And even if it was caught in the back of her mind all evening, Naminé didn't think much more of it until at nine thirty the door clicked open and from downstairs came the familiar sounds of Vexen hobbling about on his crutches.  
Naminé glanced outside at the sheets of rain pouring down.  
"I'd better go check that he's alright."  
"Mkay."  
So she crawled out of the bed into the much colder air, turning back to glance at Larxene as she reached the doorway.  
"You don't think that maybe Marluxia _did_... you know. To Vexen?"  
Larxene, still facing the window, grunted.  
"Maybe."  
"Do you think I should ask Vexen about it?"  
"No, he'll know I told you then. Look, I'll check into it later. Just, don't worry about it, okay? It was probably the handcuffs."  
"Yeah," Naminé said, "I guess."  
Downstairs, Vexen was soaked through and exhausted, but still chipper, so Naminé made him a mug of coffee, warmed up a bowl of Larxene's soup for him, and helped him up the stairs to his room, where he stripped awkwardly and fussed over his casts, then climbed immediately into bed.  
Naminé kissed his forehead and let him sleep.  
Must have been the handcuffs.


	22. 21 Difficult Conversations

Larxene didn't get a chance to talk to Vexen for the next few days; with Christmas coming up, much more important things like buying presents and arranging for hers and Naminé's families to meet up over the holiday period preoccupied her attentions. And with the weather outside more bitter and bracing than ever, Vexen wasn't taking any chances and seemed to have fallen even further into the habit of leaving the house stupendously early to catch the train to work so he wouldn't have to wait anywhere in the cold. His comments about the handcuffs, however, didn't leave her mind - and whenever she spotted Marluxia lounging in the kitchen or leaving his room, she couldn't help but wonder if he really might have been capable of forcing Vexen into bed against his will - and indeed stopping the man speaking out against his actions. Vexen had a complaint for every slightest misdeed he saw in others, deserved or not. So why had he never mentioned this before, and why bring it up now? Of course, Larxene couldn't trust Marluxia with something like this - so the only option was to catch Vexen between arriving home from work and bed, and talk to him.  
"Hey, Vexen."  
Actually, it was Saturday when Larxene finally caught him out in the sitting room, where he had been reading and looked for all the world like he had long since become part of the tatty old sofa. He was wearing his single pair of jeans, which was falling apart, and several layers of clothes over his torso, including his frayed jacket, which looked like a relic from the nineteenth century.  
"Huh? Oh, Larxene."  
Larxene plonked herself down next to Vexen, still keeping a decent distance from him just to remind him that he looked like a cat had dragged him in from the local dump.  
"Okay, we need to talk."  
Vexen carefully put his book down.  
"I had a nasty feeling you were going to say that."  
As an afterthought, Larxene heaved herself to her feet and closed the sitting room door, leaning against its frame.  
"Alright. You. Speak."  
"I don't want to talk about it," Vexen said, refusing to meet her eyes. Larxene sighed.  
"Yeah, me either. But obviously there are issues, and I don't know about you but if there's a potential rapist wandering around the house then I want to know."  
"Please don't say that word," Vexen croaked.  
Larxene pushed herself away from the door, feeling something inside her plummet and anger rise in her throat.  
"Okay, there are issues."  
Vexen cautiously lifted his legs up to perch his feet on the edge of the sofa, resting his chin between his knees in an awkward parody of childhood. For several minutes, he didn't speak, as though too preoccupied by merely concentrating to breathe.  
"You know we can't kick him out," Larxene said when the hesitation spanned too wide a gap; "But curling up into a miserable ball every time someone mentions his name isn't going to help anybody."  
"It isn't like that," Vexen whispered, looking torn between a hundred different emotions that Larxene could not care to name. But he didn't elaborate, closing his eyes and taking a number of deep breaths. Then he straightened out again, leaning out against the sofa in a pose that was little more than defeated. "Just forget about it, okay? It's not like you care whether I'm haunted by the past or not." He glanced up suddenly. "Are you?"  
"I only care about Naminé."  
"Thought so," Vexen said, without so much as opening his eyes. "She's not in any danger. Marluxia got what he wanted from her. He got what he wanted from all of us. It's just that he waited for you to say yes first."  
"That's a relief," Larxene replied blankly, wondering why she wasn't considering just leaving Vexen to his misery. When he didn't say anything further on the matter, she added, "So it's over now. Case closed. So why did you-"  
She was cut off.  
"No. Not case closed."  
"Alright then, what's the melodrama now?"  
Vexen sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
"It's more complicated than that."  
"Elaborate."  
Larxene could have sworn that a blush was rising to Vexen's cheeks and reddening his ears as he coughed, looking away.  
"I probably would have said yes if he'd bothered to ask," He said finally, in a voice so small even Larxene wasn't sure she'd heard right. "And... and recently, he's... he's been acting like he's interested in me again. And." He paused for several long moments - summoning up what little vestiges of courage he had lying around. "I'm attracted to him. There, I said it. I can't help it. He's attractive. But what about everything that happened the first time around?"  
"Sounds to me like you need to deal with the past and get on with merrily encouraging his advances." Larxene said after a moment's thought.  
"Do you think I'll ever be able to forgive him?" Vexen asked. Larxene rolled her eyes, smirking wryly.  
"Vexen, you don't need to forgive someone to fuck them. Living example before your very eyes."  
"What-? Oh, right. But I thought that. Wasn't I... wasn't I the one fucking you?"  
Larxene didn't even bother trying to not laugh. Really, Vexen might have been a humourless Scrooge, but some of the things he said were just golden.  
"Vexen, honestly think about what you just said."  
Vexen did so.  
"Yeah, okay." And then- "I'm not sure that's what I want, anyway."  
"I don't think he's really that bothered, either," Larxene said snidely. "Look, if it's that big a deal, talk to him about it. What can he do?"  
"You'd be surprised," Vexen hissed. Evidently he was also growing tired of the conversation's circles, since he stood arduously to balance on his crutches, staring out at the drizzle outside.  
"Whatever. Just scream, I'll come fight him off you."  
There was something of a pause before Vexen, of all people in such a situation, laughed.  
"Thanks."  
He hobbled over to the door, pulled the stiff hinges open.  
"In my experience," Larxene said as he made his way into the hallway, "It never does well to dwell on the past."  
"Heh. Hypocrite."  
Larxene found herself smirking a little.  
"Never said I followed my own advice. And Vexen?"  
"Yes?"  
"If Naminé asks... it was just the handcuffs, okay. I don't want her to know about all of this."  
"You told her what I said."  
"Of course I told her, you idiot. But the whole rape thing, if you tell her that she'll make a huge fuss over it and try to get Marluxia to leave and resent me for months and mollycoddle you even longer. If nothing else, we can't afford that."  
To Larxene's surprise, Vexen nodded a little.  
"Got it."  
She watched him ascend the stairs, a creature of long strides shackled by heavy plaster casts. Thoughts entertained her mind, of knocking his crutches away to see him tumble helplessly to the floor, of mockingly brushing past him to reach the landing in a fraction of the time, of scratching his idiotically adorably freckled shoulders and kissing his mouth: but she just shook her head, and instead wandered out to the kitchen to make something that might have, with a forgiving eye, passed as lunch.

* * *

"Hey, Vexen. I thought you would have left for work already."  
Quarter to eleven, Thursday morning. The rain outside had turned from an icy drizzle to full blown hail, which was cracking relentlessly on the windows and bouncing off the ground outside: so Vexen was borrowing Marluxia's car for the arduous journey away from the house. Naminé knew this, because clutched tightly in Vexen's right hand was a set of his keys, bright and glinting in the flickering hall light.  
"I'm going up to the hospital," Vexen said as he, with some difficulty, shrugged his heavy winter jacket on. "Getting my casts off today." And he gestured awkwardly to the plaster still on his arm and leg, as if Naminé had forgotten that they weren't actually just another part of his body.  
"That's great."  
"A relief, yes."  
"You're not in any hurry, are you?" Naminé asked as Vexen fumbled with his boots.  
"Not especially. I'm expecting poor traffic."  
"Well, I just wanted to ask what you were doing for Christmas. Larxene and I'll be staying with her family and we won't get back until, um, some time in January, I think. The seventh or eighth. And I think Marluxia's planning to go back to America. He hasn't said so, of course, but between you and me I think he can't stand the cold."  
"I'll probably go visit Aqua," Vexen said, although about this he didn't seem convinced.  
"Alright," Naminé replied, not wanting to call him up on his uncertainty. "I just don't want you to be lonely, is all."  
Vexen shook his head, standing unsteadily again. He hovered by the umbrella stand for a moment, but seemed to conclude that the logistics of a broken arm, crutches and an umbrella was just too complicated, so he opened the door without one.  
"It's fine. I haven't seen her for a while, anyway, so it'll be nice."  
But if anything, this seemed to have the opposite effect to cheering Vexen up: but then he was clanking out into the hail to Marluxia's car, before Naminé had a chance to press him further. She watched him struggle into his seat, then reverse meticulously out of the drive, turn and disappear into the fog. It was only once he was gone that she returned upstairs to work on her art project. Larxene was at work and Marluxia had disappeared again, so she turned her music up to its loudest setting and sang along as she drew. She remembered fondly how, just after she and Larxene had moved in and the electricity wasn't even working, they'd taken the portable stereo from Larxene's old flat, cranked up the volume and let it play until the battery gave up the ghost as they heaved furniture about the rooms and painted over the worst cracks in the walls. It had been fun back then, she just about to turn seventeen and Larxene her ridiculously flamboyant and foul-mouthed eighteen year old self. They'd not had time to sort out the dusty bedrooms by the time they were too exhausted to carry on, so they'd piled all the bedding they had onto the sofa and slept heads-to-toes there until the sun pierced the threadbare curtains in the early hours of the morning. Things had been new and exciting then, the possibilities endless.  
Naminé found herself thinking about Vexen, and his childhood hopes of university life and climate research. In reality, things never quite worked out the same. And Larxene; whatever she had wanted to do with her life, Naminé doubted that living in this old, broken down house was it.  
Forgetting her half-sketched landscapes and skies, she found herself a spare notepad and, flipping it open to its first blank page, slipped out into the corridor and began to make notes. She and Larxene had been meaning to replace the old, peeling wallpaper forever - either with a less ancient print, or paint. And the carpet needed refitting too: it had lost all of its bounce even before they'd moved in, and now was little more than solid board. Larxene's room, beneath the posters and piles of clothes, needed the same treatment. Maybe a new bed, Naminé noted, bouncing on the thing only to hear it ominously groan beneath her weight. She moved on to the bedroom, counting the cracked or stained tiles, the suspicious residue at the corners of the bath, the limescale on the tap. There was something comforting in checking the dents in the old copper piping and the brittle plastic of the ancient airer. Marluxia's room needed no adjustments: the carpet was as thick and soft as any new shop specimen, the walls, a dusty shade of lilac, devoid of cracks or blemishes. But Naminé still looked over the books on the shelf - hardback novels she'd not heard of, mostly. The few paperbacks there were were bundled into one corner as though unsightly, but judging by the damage to their spines were well thumbed. The phoenix, a few well tended flowers in terracotta pots. A set of document drawers, unlabelled. Curious, Naminé was just opening the first drawer when a voice startled her from her prying.  
"This is certainly a surprise, darling."  
Naminé quickly stepped away from the bookshelf, blushing and spluttering apologies and excuses - but the drawer was already guiltily ajar. Marluxia, however, didn't seem bothered; in his beautiful bottomless eyes there was no complaint, and he even laughed as he stepped over to pull the drawer away from the stack, showing Naminé its interior.  
"Don't worry. It's empty."  
He replaced the drawer.  
"So what brings you to my room at this time of day?"  
Naminé held up her notepad, scribblings and all.  
"I was just making a note of, um, what needs to be done. You know. Redecorating and stuff. But I don't think your room needs anything, so I'll just. Um. I'll just be off to Vexen's room now."  
Marluxia gazed at her for a moment, but apparently considered this a valid alibi and diverted his attentions elsewhere.  
"The house will require extensive structural work," He said mildly. "I understand you won't be staying here over New Year, so if we can convince Vexen to vacate the premises I can schedule it for then."  
"He said he was probably going to stay with his sister," Naminé replied, tentatively taking a seat on the chair by the desk. "But somehow I don't think he was telling the truth."  
Marluxia nodded as he, too, sat, making himself comfortable in the room's only other seat, a luxurious armchair that was so frivolous that it suited him rather well.  
"I'm sure we'll think of something."  
They were silent for a moment, each entertaining their own idle thoughts of Christmas and the surrounding holidays.  
"I wouldn't be surprised if he was planning to work right the way through to New Year," Naminé mused as the silence began to feel uncomfortable. Marluxia laughed shortly, standing.  
"No..."  
He brushed his fingers against the spine of one of the well loved books, in his eyes the glimpse of something sad behind his facade.  
"Perhaps it is time to move on," He said finally. _Move on from what?_ was Naminé's immediate reaction - before she realised that Marluxia was mere talking about her list of things to be fixed in the house. Feeling a little ridiculous, she nodded too quickly and also stood to follow Marluxia out into the hall.  
"I had decided to seek your counsel for any further renovation of the house," Marluxia said as he ghosted his palm over a tear in the wallpaper. "But there never seems to be a spare moment. I suppose we shall keep the house standing first and foremost, and worry about interior design later."  
Naminé nodded dutifully, adding "buy new telephone handset" to her rapidly extending list.  
"We can paint the walls ourselves and buy flatpack furniture," She said without really thinking. "That'll save some of the cost."  
Marluxia scoffed.  
"Money is no object."  
Naminé remembered back to when she and Larxene had first moved in, when they spent days in their grubbiest clothes and laid old sheets down on all of the floors, puzzled over illegible Swedish instructions for cupboards and chairs with screws and bolts littered around them.  
"I quite like painting walls, and flatpack furniture," She said after a moment, rather sheepishly. Marluxia, who was testing the banister of the stairs for wobble, glanced back at her.  
"You are a funny creature."  
While she was trying to come up with a suitably witty response to this comment, Marluxia reached over and took the notepad and pen to add "replace rotting wood - banister" to the bottom of the list. His handwriting was as immaculate and calligraphic as Naminé had expected, the polar opposite to Vexen's messy, slanted scrawl.  
They moved on to the sitting room, where the sofas were lumpy and the television crackled with static down one side.  
"There's a lot to do," Naminé said solemnly, flipping over to her third page. Marluxia shrugged.  
"It should keep things interesting."  
"You don't mind about this, do you?" Naminé asked. "I mean, it _will_ be a lot of money..."  
"Given the circumstances, no,"  
"Circumstances?"  
Marluxia had pulled an old book from the case in the sitting room: one of Vexen's, with a repaired spine and brown, crinkling pages.  
"Like I said," He murmured, his voice a little distant, "I like to keep things interesting."  
Naminé folded her book closed; there was only the utility room left to evaluate, after all, now the kitchen was shining, and the exterior of the house - which Naminé swore she would not see until the weather had eased up. And Marluxia, with his perfect feminine features and soft pastel clothes, was something more interesting, and more curious to test for cracks.  
"You don't like people knowing anything about you, do you?" She said sceptically after a moment. Marluxia, who had been carefully flipping pages, watched her momentarily through the fringe of his hair.  
"You're a very perceptive girl, Naminé," He said finally, but his voice however subtly had become cold. "Be careful that you don't let that get yourself into trouble."  
And he disappeared.  
Because, no matter how many enigmatic conversations they held, Naminé really didn't know anything about Marluxia. She hadn't even known he existed until Larxene brought his name up one day at the dinner table when money was scarce. There was little that he did that made sense, even to Naminé's observant eyes: and he preferred to keep it that way. But why? What was he afraid of?  
She wondered about this for several minutes, so deeply that she didn't even catch the sound of Vexen driving back up to the house until the car's headlights were shining in through the window. She grabbed an umbrella on the way out to help him on his arduous journey back into the house, quite forgetting that he was returning without the plaster weighing down his leg. He was still on crutches, but their purpose appeared now to be a little more than support, rather than the lifeline they had originally been.  
"How was it?"  
"Everything's fixed," Vexen said as he hurried inside, shaking sleet out of his hair. "More or less."  
He flopped onto the sofa in the sitting room as Naminé boiled the kettle, and gratefully accepted a mug of tea once it had brewed. He seemed content to close his eyes and do nothing more than breathe for several minutes, until finally taking a careful sip and sighing.  
"And I thought I couldn't look any more skeletal."  
"Hm?"  
Vexen pulled away the sleeve from his left arm, now little more than bones wrapped in papery white skin. Compared to the newly mended arm, the rest of him looked positively tanned, which was a not inconsiderable achievement for Vexen.  
"It'll get better," Naminé assured him kindly as he glanced about the room. He nodded distractedly, frowning.  
"One of my books is missing."  
Naminé hadn't even noticed that Marluxia had taken the book away when he left: she had simply assumed that he would have returned it to its place.  
"Huh? Oh, Marluxia was looking at it earlier. He must have borrowed it."  
"Nice of him to ask," Vexen muttered dryly, taking another gulp of his tea.  
Marluxia. Naminé, remembering Larxene, wanted to ask - but Vexen looked too tired from his trip up to the hospital to discuss uncomfortable memories, so she filed the thought away in her mind for another time and merely worried silently.  
"What?"  
"Nothing."  
"Alright."  
He finished his tea, set the cup down on the table by the sofa, and made for the door.  
"I'd better get some work done. I have some forms I need to fill out for tomorrow."  
"More paperwork?"  
"The others seem to have realised that they don't need to do it, because they know I will. I'd leave them to deal with their own health and safety assessments, but I'd rather not put my job in that kind of risk."  
"You shouldn't do _all_ of it for them,"  
"I don't mind that much," Vexen said pragmatically; "I'm the one getting paid overtime. Oh, and one more thing: what do you want for Christmas?"  
"Christmas?" Naminé had been so busy arranging for her and Larxene to go visit their families that she hadn't even given a thought to presents, hers or others. "Oh, you don't need to get me anything. I know that money's tight, and all."  
"Naminé..."  
"Well, I'll never say no to a new sketchbook, but you really don't have to get me anything. What about you?"  
Vexen shrugged.  
"I don't know, a new pair of pyjamas, maybe. Something practical."  
"Pyjamas. Got it."  
Vexen watched her with those acidic green eyes for a moment, saying so much that his mouth couldn't quite form into words, then began the long trek upstairs.

It wasn't the book that Vexen was angry about, not really. He was angry because that was just so _Marluxia_ to take delicate things from Vexen in ways that only _he_ would notice, without thought or permission, as though Marluxia owned him and by proxy everything in his possession. So when he reached the top of the stairs, he didn't take the first turning on the left to his room: he carried on to the door at the back of the house, where inevitably Marluxia would be abusing the book's fragile pages. He knocked, but paused only briefly before walking in.  
"Alright, Marluxia, give me back my book."  
Predictably, Marluxia had made himself at home on the bed, and was leafing through the book's pages with a disinterested eye.  
"I'm just looking," He said without so much as glancing up. Vexen hissed a little, expectantly holding out his right hand.  
"Give it _back_. That book is fragile, if you break it-"  
Eyes still on one page of tiny typeface, Marluxia stood, perhaps with the intention of returning the book, but not yet.  
"Please," Vexen ground out.  
"Is it so important to you?"  
"_Yes_. Those things take time and effort to repair, I hope you realise."  
"You collect damaged books," Marluxia said softly after a moment's thought, sounding almost amused. "You don't collect books because they're interesting, or valuable. You collect them because they're damaged."  
"Now is not the time to analyse my personal hobbies," Vexen snapped, feeling only more uncomfortable the longer he stayed in Marluxia's room. He could only too acutely recall how strong the other man was, how he particularly with his only freshly repaired limbs would have no hope of holding him back should he tire of bookish conversation. "Just give it back."  
"You didn't do a very good job," Marluxia replied idly, with apparently no thought to Vexen's demand. He tugged gently at one of the pages at the centre of a signature, and it easily tore loose.  
"Stop that!" Vexen yelled, more loudly than he meant. Ripped pages meant photocopies and awkward transplants, which never quite worked out right for the oldest books. "Don't you know how _hard_ that is to fix?"  
Marluxia just closely inspected the loose page as though it was not he who had ripped it from the book at all.  
"I probably would have lent it to you if you'd bothered to _ask_!" Vexen continued, feeling ignored. "But you didn't, because you _never_ do, because you just take without asking and you never bother to even apologise, and you think that everything just _belongs_ to you - and you don't even _want_ it you just take things because you _can_, now just _give it back_!"  
Marluxia, apparently unfazed, took a step forwards almost subconsciously, sliding the torn page back in its place.  
"It's not something I can just give back to you, Vexen."  
"_It's right there in your hand_!"  
Marluxia glanced idly at the book, laughed.  
"We're not talking about the book, are we, Vexen?"  
"I don't get it-" Vexen began, the wind knocked out of him, but suddenly Marluxia had crossed the gap between them and pushed the book firmly into his outstretched hand. And Marluxia was so close, the pits of his eyes so deep and so black, and though he was only a few steps from the door, its handle still at his fingertips, Vexen felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and his skin grow cold. But Marluxia neither spoke nor moved; he simply stared into Vexen's eyes as though searching for something, although what, Vexen could not say.  
But they weren't talking about the book, not really.  
Vexen remembered the pain and humiliation, the violation and the confusion; he remembered the loneliness and the bitter nights spent dreaming of other worlds, and Naminé and Larxene and waiting up on the bridge for the wind to blow just a little stronger and knock him down.  
"You raped me."  
Marluxia did not immediately respond, but even if Vexen couldn't pinpoint it exactly there was something in his eyes that was different, now.  
"_You raped me_."  
Marluxia let his hand fall from the book, turned to look out of the window at the hail pressing down on the valley below. And Vexen wondered if he understood how hard it was to say those three short words and how his heart was thudding against his ribcage, and how his voice was just an inch from cracking.  
"And for fuck's sake, you can apologise."  
Before he could so much as blink, Vexen felt his back thud against the wall, Marluxia's body against his chest and mouth by his jaw. His body gave way, instantly, stomach curling and muscles tense. But Marluxia was slow; he did not move for a minute, made no attempt to force himself further upon Vexen.  
"Please."  
Vexen had barely realised that he was crying until he felt a tear drop from his chin.  
"_Please_."  
"Don't beg me, Vexen," Marluxia said lowly, his voice barely even audible. Vexen hiccoughed, and couldn't force his throat to form another word. Marluxia reached up, softly, to brush the back of his hand against Vexen's cheek, as though he were almost sad. Another hand found the arch of Vexen's back, held him firmly but without malice. For a moment, perhaps, they were still.  
"I'm sorry."  
And Marluxia caught him as he fell, his actions hardly his own, gently led him to the bed and laid him to rest and stroked his hair until the world seemed somehow far away.


	23. 22 The Season of Giving

Marluxia disappeared just a few days later, to the glamorous life of America; without him the house was strangely quiet. Larxene went to work, came back at all hours of the night. Naminé took her thrice-weekly trips to the college. Vexen in particular was unusually subdued, wandering about the house with an uncharacteristic pensiveness as he went about his daily routine. And with Marluxia's room locked and his cars gone from the driveway, bar the small pile of Christmas presents he had left at the foot of the television it was almost as though he had never existed at all.  
Naminé - shamefully - had rattled the three parcels long before the twenty fifth. Vexen's was the smallest, something solid and oddly shaped and heavy; Naminé's was squashy, but flat - and Larxene's, a box, made barely the slightest rustle when disturbed. She, of course, had wanted to buy Marluxia something in return: but the man had openly laughed when she suggested the notion, and then the next moment he was gone.  
Christmas inched closer. Parcels were added to the pile. Vexen, in a strange fit of nostalgia one weekend, pulled out his box of decorations and roped Naminé in to help him hang them up in the sitting room. Larxene took a call from a building company about the restructural work; apparently they'd already been paid in advance and just needed dates. The twenty first to the third, excluding Christmas and New Year.  
"Vexen, did you arrange to go see your sister or whatever over Christmas in the end?"  
Larxene caught Vexen just after eight one evening pottering about in the kitchen, presumably with the view to assembling food.  
"Oh, no, it wasn't convenient in the end. I'll just stay here."  
"You know there are builders coming round? To fix the house?"  
"I don't mind as long as they're not working while I'm trying to sleep."  
"Okay. So you know."  
"I was making some spaghetti bolognaise. Do you want any?"  
"Sure. You're not a homicidal cook, are you?"  
Vexen laughed a little.  
"As far as I'm aware."  
Larxene found the cupboard and cracked open a bottle of cheap wine, pouring out two glasses.  
"Naminé and I are leaving tomorrow morning."  
"Yes, she said."  
The wine was bitter against Larxene's throat, which she liked. It was the taste of mediocrity, a poor parody of refinement. Vexen didn't seem so convinced by the deep red liquid in his own glass, but he sipped at it anyway, probably more to be polite than anything else.  
"How's the Marluxia situation going?"  
Vexen considered this for a minute, focusing on pushing the spaghetti into the saucepan without it snapping.  
"Case closed," He said eventually. "I... I talked to him about it, and he apologised."  
"Wow," Larxene said. "No, really. Wow. I've known Marluxia on and off since I was fifteen, and I have never heard him apologise. He must mean it."  
"That or he just wanted me to stop screaming at me," Vexen said dryly, setting another pan on the hob.  
"In my experience, Marluxia tends to like it when people scream at him," Larxene said sombrely, swirling her wine around her glass.  
"Context," Vexen retorted over the sizzling of mince meat. Larxene laughed at him.  
"That, dear, was the point. Chop chop, I'm getting hungry over here. I might even have to drink another glass of wine."  
"I'm not your slave," Vexen muttered, but it was only a few minutes before he had served a decent looking meal onto two plates, passing one to her across the kitchen table.  
"So," Larxene said as she ate, "I see you're back to your normal dimensions, give or take, but how's everything else?"  
"You're taking an uncharacteristic care in my personal business, Larxene," Vexen said momentarily.  
"You'll get why in a few minutes, darling."  
But Vexen didn't pick up on any hidden meaning to this; so after a moment he simply shrugged, watching the seemingly never-ending rain lay further siege to the already sodden ground outside.  
"I'll be able to catch up on my rent now that I'm earning a decent enough sum. And... maybe buy some new clothes, too."  
"Yes, you certainly need them."  
"_Thank_ you."  
"And what about Naminé?"  
"Oh, so that was why you were asking,"  
"Surprisingly enough," Larxene said, "It wasn't. But don't try to avoid the question."  
"She's just a friend," Vexen mumbled, pushing food around his plate. About this fact he didn't seem entirely pleased.  
"A friend who you kiss goodbye for work and sometimes crawl into bed with at night?"  
"... Yes."  
Larxene sighed a little, although not in displeasure, and stretched. She'd been wearing the same loose hoodie all day: it was just too cold for anything less than the thickest of clothes.  
"Not gonna lie, I'm jealous."  
They ate in silence until Vexen was scraping the last vestiges of spaghetti from his plate (he handled his left arm still a little awkwardly). Then once he had tidied away, Larxene stood quite abruptly and caught him by the wrist.  
"The real reason I was asking you how you were," She said, nimbly picking up the wine bottle with her free hand, "Was that I have a proposition to make. Wine?"  
"Just half a glass, please," mumbled Vexen, who didn't seem to consider Larxene enough of a threat to warrant the refusal of alcohol. "What do you want?"  
"Well," Larxene said, topping up Vexen's glass without relinquishing her iron grip, "Marluxia's been having one of his moods lately and it's too late to pick up anyone mildly attractive in town, so perhaps you'd like another chance to assert your masculinity without the burden of plaster this time."  
Vexen, who'd been sipping at his wine, carefully set the glass down.  
"Are you sexually propositioning me."  
"Ye-_es_," Larxene sang with a dramatic sigh. "Do try to keep up."  
Vexen duly considered this, with a frown on his gaunt features. And then:  
"Look, Larxene, I'm not just a toy for you to play with when you're bored."  
Larxene laughed at him.  
"Yes you are. Come on, Vexen, most guys would be snogging me by now. Just say yes and let's get on with it."  
"You're convinced I'm going to say yes, aren't you," Vexen said, sounding put out. He was almost adorably easy to read: he wanted to say no just to prove Larxene wrong, but he couldn't bring himself to pass up on the opportunity for sex. That, of course, was the fun of it.  
"Okay," Vexen said at length, Larxene shook her head, laughing still, and forced him to down the rest of his wine before dragging him back up the stairs.  
"Once a Vexen, always a Vexen."  
"Sadly," Vexen intoned dryly behind her, as he hobbled awkwardly onto the landing. She punched him lightly.  
"Can't say I'd want to be in your situation, that's for sure. No fun, no money, no sex..."  
She half expected Vexen to snap at her that at least one of those conditions was soon to be untrue, if not the others; but to her surprised he managed to take the comment as it was: a joke.  
"I can't fault that statement if it's true," He reasoned, shrugging. Larxene smiled a little to herself, pushing open her door.  
"Oh, shut up," She laughed as she looped her arms around his neck; "You're not half as interesting when you agree with me."  
Oh, she had him curled around her little finger. She kissed him deeply, relishing in his total surrender to primitive need, his hands on her waist and his skin pressed to hers with barely the faintest glimmer of conscious thought. She remembered this beautiful control, so long forgotten with fantasies of Naminé and in Marluxia's gorgeous unreadable eyes, and she loved every second of it.  
Vexen was already failing spectacularly to pull away her sweater. Laughing at him without restraint, the closed the door behind them both and pulled him down onto the bed. 

* * *

And then early the next morning Larxene and Naminé were gone with a kiss (sarcastic) and a hug (sincere) - and Vexen was alone in the creaky old house. It was strange, in some ways, not expecting to bump into anybody making a snack in the kitchen, or lounging on one of the decrepit sofas in front of the television. Vexen took to reading on the stairs in his free time, wandering about the house in his dressing gown. Although he missed Naminé, if not the other two, it was a pleasant change to be alone. After a day of friendly harassment at work he could come home in anticipation of a shower the moment he stepped in through the door. There were no battles for the cooker between six and seven. There were no ghosts of Marluxia lurking behind doors and around corners. It was nice.  
The same couldn't be said for the weather; the rain was pouring steadily down and had been for several days with no sign of easing up. Vexen could have sworn that he'd seen it snow one evening, but the fragile flakes disintegrated the moment they touched the sodden ground outside.  
He watched a shameful number of documentaries about polar animals. And he found himself, now that the others were gone, having the time to think carefully and exactly about what they meant to him.  
Larxene, oddly, was easy: with other gullible prey scarce (for whatever reason) she had turned her vindictive sights on him. She liked the control, Vexen supposed, knowing that there were no surprises hidden beneath his shabby clothes. It was just sex and, on reflection, Vexen was okay with that. Marluxia was more complicated, but on Christmas Eve with a thick frost lining the ground and the sky finally patchy if not clear, Vexen methodically sorted through his feelings about the other man with a walk through the fields, now barren and devoid of livestock. It still scared Vexen that Marluxia could have had such control over him, but the secret was out now, and the same old tricks would never work twice. But the mysterious pink-haired man had changed in recent months; even Vexen who suffered from the unfortunate habit of barely noticing people unless they were actively talking to him (and sometimes not even then) could see that. He had caught Marluxia several times as of late gazing pensively out of windows as though deep in thought, a cognitive activity Vexen had previously assumed him incapable of. If Larxene's viciousness in the bedroom was anything to go by, he wasn't putting out for anybody, either. And whether it was his feminine face or the action-movie-hero definition of his figure, Vexen couldn't deny that he was devastatingly attractive. If Marluxia did come knocking one night, Vexen hated to admit even to himself, he probably wouldn't send the man away empty handed.  
But that, of course, was highly unlikely, conveniently removing another dimension of emotional complexity from Vexen's frayed nerves. It didn't matter if he had never seen a man more simply beautiful; their chapter was over. Case closed. Time for Vexen to move on, to ignore Marluxia in the corridor and focus on more important things, like work and Naminé and finally getting a Goddamned haircut.  
Vexen, like everyone, had secretly been hoping for snow on Christmas Day: but as usual his pleas had fallen unheard, because on the dawn of the twenty-fifth the sky was overcast, and drizzling without a fraction of enthusiasm. Since nothing interesting was happening, Vexen allowed himself just this once to sleep in until eleven, when he was forced to roll unceremoniously out of bed to answer the phone.  
"Merry Christmas, Vexen!"  
Naminé and Larxene, both sounding a little bit hyper.  
"And you, as well."  
"Did you open your presents yet?"  
Vexen had four, in a lonely little pile downstairs (one of them, admittedly, was from himself - since it was Christmas he'd treated himself to a six hour DVD of narrated polar bear footage).  
"No, why?"  
"Open them," Larxene said, sounding curiously insistent.  
"Oh, alright then. Give me a minute."  
Vexen left the phone hanging off its hook to fetch the parcels.  
"Open mine first," Naminé said once he was sitting awkwardly on the floor with the telephone cord pulled as tight as the plastic coils would allow. "Since you kind of already know what it is."  
"Are you passing the phone between you?" Vexen, perplexed by the girls' voices reaching him in equal strength, asked.  
"No, we're on speaker phone-"  
"-Naminé's idea-"  
"-I didn't want you to be lonely today. Go on, open it."  
Vexen had already guessed that the soft, flexible parcel was a pair of pyjamas, but he'd not anticipated the little snowflakes superimposed on dusty blue flannel. It was half a little ridiculous, half incurably adorable.  
"Thank you. They're lovely."  
"I'm glad you like them," Naminé replied bashfully, while Larxene made disturbingly accurate vomiting noises behind her.  
"Open mine now," The elder woman said once she tired of such immature display. Vexen complied, prising open the box inside which lay, surrounded by tissue paper, some foreign cylindrical object roughly five or six inches in length, plasticky, smooth, and rounded at one end.  
"What is it?"  
Larxene was laughing uncontrollably.  
"And I bought you that one because I was worried you wouldn't know what a fleshlight was."  
Vexen turned the gift over in his hand a few times, feeling awkward, then resorted to rustling through the tissue paper in search of some kind of explanation.  
"Isn't a fleshlight-?" Naminé was saying, but Larxene was laughing too loudly for Vexen to make out anything else.  
"Alright, very funny. Joke's over, just tell me what it is."  
Larxene gave another cry of glee, gasping for breath.  
"Oh, God. Oh God Vexen, you're the _best_." And she dissolved into giggles again. It was a moment before she sobered herself, and added; "There's a switch at the end. Flick it."  
Expecting the thing to be some kind of torch, Vexen complied - but rather than lighting up it began to buzz in his hand, sending vibrations through his skin. Too late, he remembered how much of an incredible (and shameless) pervert Larxene was; disgusted, he threw the offending item back into its box, where it hummed suggestively at him.  
"I hate you," He said with feeling. "I hate you so much."  
But Larxene's fits of laughter had become distant and foggy, replaced by Naminé's rather sweeter tones.  
"What did she get you?"  
Vexen summoned up the courage to switch the damned thing off, before kicking the box away.  
"A vibrator," He mumbled, and added vehemently; "Bitch."  
There was a pause as Naminé, who probably had never seen a sex toy, and Vexen who definitely hadn't, considered this.  
"Well, what did Marluxia get you?"  
Vexen was glad of the change in subject matter.  
"I don't know yet," He said, picking up the little parcel. "Probably just a token or something. What did you get?"  
"He gave Larxene this lacy underwear," Naminé said. "It's nice, but, um. Sort of awkward to open in front of my parents. And I've got this fluffy hoodie. It's white with ears on the hood. I'm wearing it now. Larxene says she likes how cuddly it is."  
Vexen, privately, suspected that if he ever had phone sex, the foreplay would probably sound a lot like this.  
"I can't wait to see it."  
"So what's in the parcel?" Naminé pressed, after what sounded like some brief scuffle with Larxene.  
"Jewellery, probably," Vexen guessed, pulling away the sellotape. But the heavy thing inside wasn't a necklace - it was a key. A key with, unmistakeably, the Mercedes logo etched into one side.  
"A key? Like, an old one, or-?"  
"No, it's a car key."  
"He bought you a _car_?" Naminé asked, sounding amazed. "Wow, Vexen. He must really like you."  
"That's ridiculous," Vexen said, glancing out at the drive all the same. But it was empty. "He's probably just making a joke. Where would he hide a car for two weeks, anyway?"  
"Did he leave a note?"  
Vexen rummaged around in the wrapping paper - where indeed there was a small business card, emblazoned with the same sign, and beside it Marluxia's calligraphic handwriting.  
"Yeah. It says 'on the left oh the house, past the trees, under the tarpaulin'."  
"Well, go on, then." Larxene, back on the phone and apparently over the whole sex toy joke, said. "You lucky bastard, he didn't get _me_ a car."  
"You've already got one," Vexen said distantly, already edging towards the stairs.  
"Yes, but it's a piece of shit."  
But Vexen had already dropped the phone, wandering downstairs like his heart wasn't beating madly at the thought of finally having a car again, not to mention one that Marluxia considered suitable. Forgetting that he was in his pyjamas (not that anyone would be around at this time of day), he pulled on his Wellingtons and grabbed an umbrella, walking out past the trees on the left side of the house. There, tucked in between the bushes, was the particularly car-shaped tarpaulin. Vexen peeked underneath, and from what flashes of silver metal he could see, the car was very nice indeed, in a practical sort of way.  
A little shellshocked, he wandered back through the drizzle into the house, where he shook off the worst of the rain and returned upstairs to the phone.  
"Yes," He said into the mouthpiece, "It's a car."  
"Wow," Said Larxene. "Lucky bastard."  
Vexen picked up the key, turning it over and over. A car... he hadn't had a car for months, not since he'd lost his old job, and Larxene - the vile bitch - parked it overnight in the seven-to-nine car park. Had cost him two hundred pounds to get it unclamped. But why would Marluxia buy him a car?  
"You'll have to take me for a ride some time," Larxene was saying. "Anyway, yeah, you go enjoy the car. Naminé and I should probably get back to the festivities."  
"Yeah, alright." Vexen, who was still thinking about the car, said distractedly. "Have a nice day."  
"And you," Larxene said as though this was some hilarious joke. Naminé was more forgiving, telling Vexen that she missed him, and that she hoped he was planning to have a special meal since it was Christmas (or else) - and she'd see him on the eighth - and all the while Larxene was groaning loudly behind her.  
"I'll call tonight."  
"It's okay," Vexen said dryly, his mind already supplying images of Naminé lying in her bed with a phone pressed to her ear, wearing that fluffy hoodie and maybe some too-big pyjama trousers (or maybe just underwear)- "I can survive."  
"I still want to-" Naminé began, but there was another scuffle from the other end of the phone, and then the line fell flat. Vexen looked at the pyjamas, and... Larxene's present... on the decrepit carpet, and out at the dank weather beyond the window. It was Christmas; the roads would be clear today.  
Vexen changed quickly, then braced the dreary rain to throw the tarpaulin back from the car, inspecting it critically - Marluxia had bought it; there _had_ to be a catch somewhere. But it appeared to be a perfectly sensible, if a little flashy, Mercedes Benz.  
He unlocked the door, folded his umbrella, climbed gracelessly inside. It didn't even have leather interiors. Marluxia had bought him a present that was not only otherwise unattainable, but also genuinely useful.  
There was a manual on the dashboard, which Vexen flicked through before stowing it away in the glovebox. When he turned the key, the engine purred obediently to life.  
Perhaps Christmas wouldn't be so dull, after all. 

* * *

New Year was much the same; Vexen spent it re-watching taped documentaries on his old video player, the ones that he'd seen so many times as a young man that the grainy pictures on the film were beginning to fade. At midnight or so, Naminé called to wish him well in the forthcoming year, which Vexen would have scoffed at - but the sheer sincerity of her drunken self actually made him believe, for a second, that maybe this year would be better than the last. And those hopes seemed finally to have been heard, because that morning when he pulled the curtains aside there was the tiniest smattering of snow on the ground, more falling from the sky. Vexen pulled on his thickest clothes and heaviest boots, and wandered outside into the garden, then down through the valley as the snowflakes tumbled around him. It was almost too warm: his footprints left wet caverns where the snow just melted as it hit the grass - but with the deep grey clouds looming overhead and a bit of luck, there'd be a decent downfall that evening, enough for the snow to settle in drifts.  
He returned at lunch time to make some soup (an interesting affair), which he drank by the window, watching the wind tossing and turning the snowflakes in the air. Perhaps Naminé and Larxene were doing the same, entranced by the miracle of frozen droplets of water falling from the sky and resting so delicately on the ground. There was nothing, Vexen thought sometimes, quite so beautiful as snow, in a sad way. Rare, even here in the North, fragile and fleeting, sometimes melting on the ground, sometimes settling, sometimes drifting up against dry stone walls and brick houses. And then there was the hope: that one flake would fall, that a million flakes would fall, that the soil would stay frozen for just one more day. Rain? Rain was an everyday occurrence; rain seeped sulkily into the ground. Snow had the power to stop the world, for a day.  
Vexen had always liked snow. It might have had something to do with always liking polar bears (or vice versa).  
And then people grew tired of the sledges and the men and the angels, and it was shovelled with the dirt into corners like it never had any right to spread its wings over the country at all.  
Vexen sighed to himself and wandered upstairs to find a damaged book to repair, or failing that, read. The snow continued to fall.  
On the second, Vexen went back to work through more sleety snow. On the third, the builders finished their work and took down the scaffolding, leaving the house if not looking pretty, then in no danger of collapsing in the next twenty years. The fourth was uneventful, bar sludge at the side of the road from the snow's brief glory. The fifth was uneventful. The sixth was Vexen's birthday. 

* * *

Vexen didn't make a habit of mirrors. He didn't like the fact that he couldn't lie to himself when he looked at their reflections - that his skin was sallow, his eyes sunken and hollow but somehow so bright as to be unnatural, that his body had no tone and that no matter how he tried to smooth his features there was always something of a grimace on his face, like he'd just forgotten how to be happy. If he stood far enough away from the mirror in the bathroom (and if it hadn't been cleaned for a few weeks), he could just about pass off as a reasonably respectable man - but at that distance, he could also be mistaken for a woman.  
On the sixth, after rising at eight, washing, dressing and eating, Vexen found himself in front of the very same mirror, studying himself with the same critical eye that he viewed, say, amateur literature, or vegetables in the green grocer's.  
"All right," He said, finally, looking away. "You're old now."  
He glanced back at his new thirty-year-old self. He didn't look much different to yesterday, except yesterday he'd been wearing his most ancient (and only) T-shirt, and hadn't bothered to brush his hair too thoroughly. But what _was_ striking was the difference between him now and him as a twenty-year-old, when life had been so full of hope and promise and insane amounts of debt incurred to pay for university costs. Much had changed in the last ten years. He'd looked his age then, almost. Now anyone with a careless eye would happily believe that he was forty.  
"Happy birthday."  
He scoffed to himself a little, and wandered downstairs. He'd not told Larxene or Naminé (well, Larxene _had_ known, because she'd seen his passport and CV - but she wouldn't have remembered), because he didn't want them making a fuss. Birthdays were the best when Vexen, romance at the mirror aside, pretended that they were exactly the same as any other day. Ideally, this would mean working - but not even Vexen could wheedle the receptionist into opening the office block specially on Saturdays to offer him eight hours of peaceful solitude away from the house; instead he was planning a quick walk to the town to inspect the shops and pretend that his paycheck wasn't going to paying people back the money he owned, and then home in the afternoon to repair damaged books or watch television.  
He made himself a packed lunch, sandwiches and an apple, shoved it into the bottom of his rucksack so if it began to hail there was a chance that it wouldn't be saturated with water by the time he found a bus stop to shelter under and eat. And he was just popping into his room to get his shoes when-  
"Marluxia, what the hell are you doing in my bedroom?"  
"Happy birthday," Marluxia said pleasantly, as though it were the most normal thing in the world to be gone for weeks then suddenly appear out of nowhere in Vexen's private territory. He must not long have been in, because his coat was still damp from the moisture in the air, and his hair looked a little windswept (although still somehow perfect, Vexen noted irritably).  
"How did you know about that?" Vexen demanded, closing the door with a rather petulant click.  
"Driving license," Marluxia replied in the same chipper tone. "I trust you like the car?"  
"Yes, but I still don't forgive you," Vexen snapped. "Thank you, by the way. You could have just got me any old thing."  
"It's not in my style," Marluxia said, stepping closer.  
"You always have been one for wasting money," Vexen retorted. But Marluxia didn't even seem to take offence to this: he just smiled, amiably, pulled off his leather driving gloves and carefully folded them into his pocket.  
"I wish to take you out today. For the occasion."  
"No." Vexen said without hesitation.  
"There's a zoo near here," Marluxia continued anyway, inspecting his fingernails. "As I understand it, they have a mating couple of polar bears, the female of which has recently given birth to a healthy pair of cubs."  
Vexen knew, actually. He'd read about it on the internet during one of his lunch breaks (and consequently been laughed at for three days by his colleagues for having a weakness for baby polar bears).  
"The general public aren't allowed to see them yet," He clipped.  
"Yes, about that," Marluxia drawled, "You might have noticed, Vexen, but I'm not the general public."  
Vexen considered all the ways in which Marluxia could have been lying, but knowing the man's wealth and propensity to sleep with anything (especially if blonde) made it all too reasonable for him to have had contacts at the zoo who would let him in for a day to see the baby polar bears.  
"What." He said flatly anyway, not wanting to believe his ears.  
"I'm taking you to see baby polar bears for your thirtieth birthday, Vexen."  
And in that moment, Vexen had two very distinct and very separate thoughts. First: _he's trying to seduce me with polar bear cubs_. Second: _I don't care_.  
"And I don't get a choice in the matter?"  
Marluxia smiled: but there was something different about this smile, something less detached and more genuine.  
"Naturally, no."  
Vexen fought his losing battle for a few more moments, just because this was Marluxia and he was only giving the man the satisfaction of winning, yet again.  
"… When do I need to be ready?"  
"We'll leave on the hour," Marluxia said, glancing at the clock (old, but still in time - Vexen made sure of that, frequently). "And leave lunch to me. I've made plans."  
He brushed past Vexen, an action that even the blonde man could tell was engineered to touch as much of him as possible while still seeming accidental, and then Marluxia was gone.  
And then Vexen was going to see, for the first time in his life, baby polar bears.


	24. 23 Unexpectedly complex presents

"I'm actually half hoping that Vexen's burned the house down."  
Loaded up with newly acquired gifts, Larxene and Naminé had left early to drive home through clear Monday motorways and chilly drizzle; now it was almost midday and they were just coming into the town to which their house, out of nothing more than technicality, belonged.  
"I'm sure there are things you'd miss."  
"What, like Vexen?" Larxene asked, laughing. She was in a good mood: Christmas had been an enjoyable break from the drama of their dysfunctional household - and a fruitful one, at that: Larxene was now the proud owner of a very fancy pair of lace undergarments and the knowledge that Vexen was now (whether or not he liked it) in the possession of a vibrator.  
"Don't pretend you haven't been sleeping with him," Naminé, who had also been of a pleasant disposition from the winter festivities, said gently.  
"You know about that?" Larxene asked, making the mistake of taking her eye off the road. They skidded to a halt just at a red light, narrowly missing more oncoming traffic. Something in the boot cracked. "There goes that hideous vase Aunt May gave us."  
"Of course I know," Naminé said once they'd regained their balance. "It's easy to tell when Vexen's, you know, because he wanders around looking shell shocked for days afterwards."  
Larxene laughed again. They were pulling into their road now, even if it was another half a mile to their house.  
"You're such a bitch."  
"I'm not," Naminé protested, craning her neck as though to see past the high-hedged twists and turns in the road to their home at the end. "It's true. I guess he's just... not used to it yet."  
"Yet," Larxene echoed in amusement. "I'm not making a habit of it, you know. He's just fun to toy with."  
"As long as he knows that," said Naminé, ever the protective mother hen.  
"Yeah, yeah. It's just a big joke, isn't it. He's not really stupid enough to fall in love with me," Larxene insisted. "I hope he's learned his lesson by now, anyway."  
Naminé nodded, but didn't reply, either to argue or concur.  
"Anyway," Larxene continued, "Have you heard those little noises he makes? _Hilarious_."  
"I wasn't paying attention," Naminé said stuffily, and looked somewhat pointedly at the landscapeless view outside. Apparently she was not yet accustomed to Larxene and Vexen's occasional (if they could even be called that) trysts.  
"Alright," Larxene said finally. "But next time, listen out for the squeaking. It's kind of adorable, in ways that only sexually inexperienced nearly-thirty-year-olds can be."  
"What makes you think that there's going to be a next time?"  
Larxene considered this.  
"Naminé, if you want to have sex with Vexen, just walk into his bedroom and take off your clothes. He is incapable of saying no."  
"Well," Naminé said, "He likes you now anyway, so."  
They were just coming into the drive; the house, amazingly, was still upstanding, the Christmas lights still twinkling gently in the living room window.  
"Are you kidding me?" Larxene asked, pulling the car to a halt in the driveway. "He doesn't like me. We hate each other. He's just, you know, my only option for convenient sex right now."  
Their conversation was interrupted for the mad rush to carry all of their luggage back into the house through the sleet without any of it penetrating through the flimsy bags holding every hastily-assembled article together. And then there was the house to inspect, with its new supporting beams and clean, crisp plaster.  
"It doesn't actually look that different from before," Larxene said reflectively, a little disappointed. She had been hoping, vaguely, that Marluxia would have tried to have made the back of the house match the rest a little better, rather than the ridiculous mish-mash that the building, with all its extensions and add-ons over the years, had become. But Naminé, under the protection of an umbrella, was giving it a more appreciative eye.  
"I think it looks nice," She said. "I like how this house is a bit odd. It's just nicer when that oddness doesn't entail the possibility of it falling down."  
"On me, anyway," was Larxene's dismissive verdict.  
And they bundled back inside where it was warm and dry, made tea, and wandered into the back of the house to unload their dirty washing.  
The utility room was one of the few things about the house that was perfect for its inhabitants' uses: without wide corridors or a conservatory, there was nowhere to pile heaps of washing (the bathroom was too small) or, once clean, hang it up to dry (the bathroom was too damp). The utility room, tile floored and well ventilated, was perfect for this purpose, even when the sleet and wind outside was cruelly bracing. Marluxia and Vexen took care of their own laundry (although Larxene suspected that Marluxia just wore clothes once then bought them anew, because she couldn't imagine the spoilt man ever lowering himself to household chores), but the girls still generated a fair amount of dirty washing on a weekly basis: so they made a habit of collecting on Sundays to just get everything done in one fell swoop. With the recent drama, this system had fallen though; it was refreshing for Larxene to go back to her old habits of throwing piles of clothes about the place and laughing at Naminé's adorable underwear.  
"I didn't think you still had the ones with the kittens on. Aren't they too small for you yet?"  
"Oh, be quiet."  
It was just as they were piling the whites into the washing machine that Marluxia, the same beautiful apparition that they had remembered, appeared in the doorway, dressed down in a baby blue shirt and khaki trousers that were so devoid of creases as to be brand new.  
"Hello, ladies."  
Whether it was out of surprise, clumsiness, or something else entirely, the bundle of shirts and pyjamas and undergarments tumbled from Naminé's arms.  
"Oh," She said, quickly stuffing her dropped laundry into the drum of the washing machine. "Oh, hello."  
Marluxia's gorgeous bottomless eyes scanned the room.  
"I take it you enjoyed your Christmas break," He murmured at length.  
"It was perfect," Larxene replied, which was an exaggeration because her perfect Christmas would involve Vexen being mysteriously deported to foreign climes and Naminé realising that she was hopelessly and irrevocably in love with her. But impossible dreams side, the free food and pleasant company had provided the closest thing to perfection that Larxene could reasonably want. "I liked the sexy underwear. Very classy. And I swear Naminé hasn't taken off her fluffy atrocity since she opened it."  
Marluxia had already noted Naminé's fleecy little body, apparently, because he cast no further glances to her, merely smiling softly into the middle distance.  
"I thought they were..." he seemed to search for a word, although Larxene knew from experience that this was little more than a dramatic pause; "Appropriate."  
Larxene hummed. Yes, but appropriate for whom, exactly?  
"And I heard that you bought Vexen a car."  
Marluxia shrugged.  
"A purchase of necessity, I feel."  
"Vexen's gone to work, has he?" Naminé asked quickly, probably before Larxene could comment on all the ways in which a nice car for her was a "purchase of necessity".  
"At the crack of dawn, naturally," Marluxia replied. He sounded amused.  
Larxene laughed suddenly, remembering Christmas morning with Naminé on her lap and poor, hapless Vexen at the end of the phone.  
"Oh, Marluxia, next time you see him ask him if he's used what I got him for Christmas yet," And she gleefully noted the explosion of a blush on Naminé's face and Marluxia's questioning glance.  
"If you insist," He said, in that same tone of voice, and then as quickly as he had come he disappeared.  
"He's changed," Naminé mused pensively, setting the washing machine running. "Have you noticed?"  
"Yeah, distinctly the absence of him in my bed," Larxene said: but she noted the seriousness of Naminé's statement, especially knowing Marluxia when they were younger: and he was the same charming, sophisticated and arrogant specimen at sixteen as twenty-three. Secondly, Naminé was correct: Marluxia was imperceptibly different now, in ways that Larxene could not pinpoint and Naminé must have noted long ago.  
"It must be Vexen," Naminé said. She sipped at her tea, deep in thought. It was one of those moments when she was, simply and for lack of a better word, adorable. "I mean, why else would he buy Vexen a car?"  
"You think he's trying to make up for what he did to him?" Larxene asked. Naminé shrugged.  
"Maybe. But I'm not sure if it's just that. He… he doesn't seem the type to try to win Vexen's favour back like that, but I'm not sure why." And she thought for a moment longer.  
"Well, if what I know of him's anything to go by, he wouldn't care at all," Larxene said. "I'm surprised he even apologised. Let alone a car." She pointed at the lacy underwear, in the piles of washing, and Naminé's new hoodie. "These were just trinkets, but a fucking car..."  
"Maybe..." Naminé was tapping her lips with her teaspoon, "Maybe it's more than just wanting to make amends. Do you think it's possible that Marluxia likes Vexen?"  
Like? If there was anyone less likely to have a schoolboy crush on anyone, it was Marluxia; and if there was anyone less likely to be the object of those affections, it was Vexen.  
"No way. Marluxia was just toying around with him. Same way I am, except I asked first."  
"Was, maybe," Naminé said. She was frowning, and to Larxene it looked as though she was using her powers of observation to explore the darkest depths of Marluxia's conscious, and it wasn't a pleasant place. "But that might have changed."  
"What that doesn't explain," Larxene said, accepting for a moment Naminé's wild and ridiculous theory, "Is _this_." And she tugged on Naminé's hoodie. "If Marluxia is trying to seduce Vexen, then why-"  
"I didn't mean like that," Naminé established a little too quickly. "Well, he _might_ want to-"  
"-It's common knowledge that he thinks Vexen is gorgeous-"  
"-But that wasn't what I meant. I just as in between people. Friends." She dwindled to a halt. "Anyway, what about this?"  
"Oh, come _on_," Larxene drawled. "You must have noticed. You're not the one to whom fluffy white animals are irresistible, are you?"  
"I-" realisation dawned across Naminé's face. "Oh."  
"But if Marluxia is trying to regain Vexen's favour, then why is he buying _you_ adorable polar bear jumpers?"  
They considered this.  
"I don't know," Naminé eventually admitted.  
It was a mystery. 

* * *

Vexen arrived home in good time that evening, thanks, in part, to his new car (and also thanks to his colleagues' friendly threat to take him out to the pub if he tried to work overtime). It had been difficult at best to explain to them how he, a penniless man, could suddenly acquire a very agreeable Mercedes, and eventually it was the awkward truth that prevailed: he had an acquaintance with too much money and no sense of subtlety whatsoever. At least he had not needed to explain the polar bears. He would never have lived down the polar bears.  
The cold rain had eased off a little by the time he parked the car next to Larxene's tatty old Ford, so there wasn't quite the same sprint to the front door that he had been accustomed to; and once inside he was pleasantly surprised to discover that the heating had been turned up several degrees: Larxene and Naminé were home.  
After a little searching, he found them in the kitchen, chatting over something that Larxene must have cooked, because it didn't even smell edible.  
"Oh, um, hello."  
"I see you haven't managed to destroy the house in our absence," Larxene said without looking up. She had in her right hand a pen, hovering over a squared notepad. Vexen instantly recognised what the untidy rows of figures showed: finances. In her left hand she held a spoon, something not dissimilar to soup gently dripping off the sides back into her bowl.  
Vexen rolled his eyes.  
"I'm sorry about that."  
Larxene laughed a little, finally looking up.  
"There's soup keeping warm in the oven, if you'd like."  
Vexen critically inspected the girls' dinner.  
"Thank you, but I'll pass. How are the-" He gestured to Larxene's columns of numbers - "Figures adding up?"  
Larxene held up her hand as she finished a few more calculations, pen moving at incredible speed (she could do that, Vexen supposed, after years of practice working as a secretary for a big company. As far as he was aware, she was both very good at her job and loathed it with all her heart).  
"I think," She said finally, "That for the first time ever, we are actually under budget. Which means that we actually made a profit from you this month. At last," She added, "You're useful for something."  
Vexen had made his way to the fridge, pulling open his box. There wasn't much in there, just a few lunch things and half a packet of mince, but it would do.  
"Does this mean you're going to start charging me less for rent?"  
"Not a chance."  
Vexen, honestly, was not surprised by this verdict: so he made no move to complain, only fishing a frying pan from the cupboard and setting the rest of the mince cooking.  
"Hello to you too, Naminé."  
Naminé, who appeared to be double checking Larxene's first pass at income/expenditure with impressive zeal, glanced up.  
"Had a nice Christmas, did you?"  
Vexen fired off something of a withering glare towards Larxene.  
"Certain circumstances aside, yes."  
"You cannot even complain that I got you a vibrator," Larxene said, "Marluxia bought you a fucking car."  
Vexen suspected that she would be using this as an excuse for a long time.  
"It was a decent break," He said. "And you?"  
"Yeah, it was really good to get out of the house," Naminé said. "Not because of you," She quickly added; "Just because of everything that's been going on, you know."  
Vexen nodded.  
"I understand."  
"So, did you do anything interesting?"  
Vexen rummaged around in the cupboard for a tin of chickpeas.  
"No, not really, apart from the polar bears."  
"Polar bears?"  
"Oh." Said Vexen, wondering how he had managed to let slip about the polar bears without thinking, having avoided the topic like a plague all day at work. "Oh, uh. Marluxia took me to see polar bears for my birthday."  
"He took you to see polar bears? Christ, how old are you again? Six?"  
Vexen coloured a little, carefully not meeting Larxene or Naminé's eyes.  
"I didn't know it was your birthday," Naminé, who was a little more forgiving, murmured. "I would have got you something."  
"It's fine," Vexen said. "I don't really like to make a thing about birthdays, anyway."  
"How old are you now, anyway?" Larxene pressed. "Seriously. Your creepy obsession with polar bears aside."  
Vexen mumbled indistinctly.  
"Sorry, I didn't hear that."  
"… Thirty."  
"Oh, wow," Larxene said. "Sorry, but I don't think we can hook up any more. Thirty's kind of my limit. It's nothing personal."  
Vexen glared at her, wondering if she realised how touchy he was about his age.  
"Thirty isn't _that_ old."  
"I'm joking, sweetie. If I wouldn't fuck you at thirty, I wouldn't have fucked you at twenty nine, either."  
Vexen sighed. He was not going to win.  
"_Thank_ you."  
There was a polite cough behind them. Naminé.  
"I am still here, you know."  
"Sorry."  
But Naminé just smiled a little, correcting Larxene's sloppy calculations with typical care.  
"It's alright. I guess I'm just not used to you two flirting with each other yet."  
"We were flirting?" This was news to Vexen.  
"Well, you know what I mean. Talking about it."  
"Nam, if it bothers you, I can find someone else to molest in the night," Larxene said. "I only do it because it's convenient."  
"I kind of feel like it ought to be up to Vexen," Naminé mused. And finishing off one last line of numbers (a little below Larxene's first estimate, but still satisfyingly in the green), she stood, carrying her empty bowl over to the dishwasher.  
"I'm surprised you even ate that," Vexen said just as Larxene made some joke about Vexen never having had a choice in who he slept with.  
"Well, being friends with Larxene has kind of given me a stomach of steel."  
"I heard that!"  
"So Marluxia took you to the zoo, huh?" Naminé said a few moments later, a little more quietly. Larxene was triple-checking the finances, but she seemed to have lost interest in her fellows on the other side of the room. Vexen felt his ears heat up a little, and quickly busied himself chopping pepper for dinner.  
"It was just because they had some baby polar bears there," He said - and regretted it immediately after. Baby? Why did he have to have said _baby_?  
"_Oh,_," was Naminé's predicable response. "Oh, that's so _adorable_. How many of them were there?"  
"Just the two," Vexen replied. "It really brings back memories, though. I remember the first time I went to the zoo when I was little, and they had a polar bear, and…I must have spent hours watching her. That was when I got Snjór. And decided I wanted to be a climate research scientist."  
He sighed a little; he might have still had Snjór, but the latter was an impossible dream now. He'd be lucky if he even came close. He was lucky to have a job at all.  
"That's so cute," Naminé said again, loading up the dishwasher. Larxene had wandered out. "So did Marluxia say why he took you?"  
"Because it was my birthday...?"  
"Well-" Naminé stopped suddenly as if deciding against whatever she was going to say. "Well, yes. Obviously." And she elaborated no further.  
Vexen finished cooking, and made his way over to the table to eat.  
"I don't really know what he's thinking," He said, sitting down in the corner so Naminé could join him. "But that's probably a good thing." He paused momentarily. "Knowing Marluxia."  
Naminé washed him carefully for a moment; he knew those eyes, the ones that observed everything that Vexen with his clumsy social skills missed, directed at him himself.  
"I can ask him to leave you alone," She said eventually. "If, you know, if it bothers you."  
Vexen shook his head.  
"Not so much any more. I don't know why, but I feel like we're on more even ground now." He said between mouthfuls of food. "It was a long time ago, anyway."  
Naminé considered this.  
"Have you forgiven him?"  
It was a difficult question to answer. Marluxia had apologised, yes, and the case was closed now, but had Vexen _forgiven_ him? Could he ever, after the pain and paranoia and instability?  
"No," He said after much thought. "But I'm moving on."  
This seemed to satisfy Naminé; she nodded a little, and turned her attentions the drizzle splashing against the windowpanes. They watched the strange, dynamic patterns the water created together for some time.  
"I'm really sorry," she said gently. "I think Larxene and I both knew what happened. But we didn't want to admit it."  
Vexen turned to watch her, instead, making particular note of her furrowed eyebrows, the distantness of her gaze.  
"I didn't want to admit it either," He murmured. And Naminé reached out for his hand and caught his eyes. It struck him that she was smiling, a melancholy curve to her lips.  
"It'll be alright," She said. "It's over now."  
Vexen knew that. He'd known for a long time that Marluxia (all his flamboyant gifts aside) was not coming back; although Vexen was almost certain that he wouldn't be rebuked if he approached the man, the point was that what had come before was over, in the past, forgotten, filed away in the cabinets of Vexen's life to gather dust and remind him that things could always, always be worse. So he just nodded, wondered somewhere in the other-people part of his brain if Naminé perhaps would join him for the evening in front of the television, or maybe in his room reading a book, or curled up in bed. But it didn't seem appropriate to ask, since he had apparently been (unbeknownst to himself) flirting with Larxene earlier. Then again, that was all only casual, so did that make it okay to be a little more than friends with Naminé? Vexen wasn't sure.  
People were so confusing.  
"Yeah," He said eloquently instead. "I know."  
Naminé squeezed his hand a little.  
"I should probably go help Larxene get all of the finances typed up," She said, glancing towards the ceiling like she could see the older woman through the floorboards, "It's not fair to leave her to do it all by herself. Have a good evening, won't you?"  
Vexen nodded.  
"I've got some reading to catch up on."  
"Alright. I'll see you later."  
And Naminé slipped away.


	25. 24 Snowday

A few days passed, but Marluxia seemed to take no further notice of Vexen, as though the gift of the car and the polar bears had never existed. To Vexen, who had been somewhat expecting Marluxia to make further advances, this was both a relief and something of a disappointment. It wasn't that Vexen _wanted_ Marluxia to come and bestow (loosely termed) affection, as it were, but the man _was_ very attractive and, well, further trysts would at least provide answers, if nothing else. Vexen did not like not knowing things. He especially disliked not knowing things about himself, and Marluxia was a whole directory of personal things that Vexen did not know. But, internal debate and confusion aside, the weekend arrived with barely a glimpse of the pink-haired man, even in corridors.  
Vexen woke early on Saturday morning, which to him more or less constituted as work day, and after a quick breakfast sat down with his receipts and bank statements to do Finance (a thing that Vexen had a lot of experience with, but still hated, because most of that was usually working out how much of his income was required to service his debt, and realising that he didn't have enough money to do important things like pay his rent and eat). It wasn't that Vexen was fiscally irresponsible (despite considerable evidence to the contrary); he was just eternally fiscally unlucky. Things just seemed to be perpetually falling down around him, like cars and houses and dreams. He had become well accustomed to it.  
Right now, he only owed Marluxia the thousand or so pounds for the roof, which the younger man seemed to have forgotten about but Vexen, on principle, refused to (perhaps irresponsible, but Vexen hated the thought of owing people things). So he was setting aside a percentage of his monthly paycheck for the purposes of repayment, and factored it all into his calculations.  
It was a long and tiresome affair, interrupted briefly by Naminé's appearance at the door:  
"There's someone on the phone for you. Says his name's Xig...Xig... something. Good morning, by the way. Your hair's sticking up a bit there."  
"Oh, it's just a colleague from work," Vexen said, standing to collect the phone (and let Naminé fuss over his untidy ponytail). "Good morning to you, too. Hello?"  
"Hey, it's me, Xigbar. Was that another one of your hookers?"  
"She's my _landlady_," Vexen said pointedly, much to Naminé's amusement. His colleagues at work seemed to have settled enthusiastically on the notion that Vexen was some kind of connoisseur of prostitutes; he no longer spent much energy attempting to dissuade them. "Why the call?"  
"We're all going down to the pub tonight. Coming?"  
Vexen wondered why they still bothered. It had been _months_ since he'd taken the new job; usually people just gave up trying to get Vexen to leave the secure confines of his home after a few weeks of blatant rebuttals.  
"No, thank you."  
"Suit yourself," Xigbar said at the other end of the phone. He sounded disappointed. "I'll see you on Monday, then."  
A few formalities later, Vexen hung the phone back up on the wall.  
"Just asking if I wanted to go out tonight," He said to Naminé, who was still hanging around.  
"Do you?"  
"Of course not," Vexen said. "I'm far too socially awkward for that."  
"Maybe you should try some time," Naminé said with the tone of voice of somebody who knew what social awkwardness felt like. "You might make some friends."  
"I might make a fool of myself," Vexen instantly retorted.  
"You might not."  
"I don't need friends," Vexen lied, but not even Naminé was that gullible.  
"Don't give me that," She said tiredly, and then seemingly catching herself shuffled he feet a little, glancing down. "Of course, you probably want to stay at home so you don't run the risk of embarrassing yourself," She continued; "But I wondered if you wanted to go out walking with me this afternoon. The rain's finally stopped, and it's really nice out. For January."  
Vexen had not paid much attention to the world that morning; but now he glanced out of the window at the end of the corridor to note that, indeed, the sky was clear, the weak sun beating down on fresh, crisp frost. He carefully considered Naminé's proposition: it would be nice to get out of the house now that the clouds had finally cleared, and it would give him an excuse to be done with his accounting by lunchtime. The bleak, leafless landscape and thought of cold air didn't really occur to him. He would have the chance to spend time alone with Naminé.  
"Sounds wonderful." 

* * *

Clouds were beginning to gather as, after lunch, the two of them set out down the hill at the back of the house (Naminé had been hoping that Vexen would take her a little further afield in his new car, but he had decided otherwise for no apparent reason). He'd packed their cagoules (along with a flask of hot chocolate) in his rucksack, though, so even if it did rain they probably wouldn't get completely wet.  
They crunched in silence through the frost until they reached the river, which was flowing but only just, then followed it downstream. There was nothing but open countryside here; empty, rolling fields backing onto clusters of trees and dry stone walls: it was part of the wonderful allure of the house, Naminé thought, that in just a few minutes of walking they could really be in the vast and beautiful expanse of nowhere.  
"It's pretty, isn't it?" She said of the frozen landscape around them, as Vexen helped her up onto a rift of limestone paving.  
"Yes," He said thoughtfully. He was making an effort to notice things, she could see that: but it didn't seem to come naturally to him; nor were words, which from his mouth sounded neither poetic nor eloquent. But he was trying. Naminé could not ask for much more than that.  
They walked on.  
"So you, um, enjoyed Christmas," Vexen said eventually, just as a breeze began to pick up. Naminé pulled her hat further down over her ears and wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck.  
"Yeah, it was really fun. I think Larxene enjoyed it too. She's been feeling a bit left out lately."  
Vexen considered this.  
"I don't know why you like her," He said at length. "I mean. She's quite attractive, as women go, you know, but." He seemed to realise the hole this was leading him to, "She can be awfully sour."  
"Well, she takes some getting used to," Naminé agreed, "But she's always been there for me. I used to get picked on at school, because I was little and shy, but she always came to my rescue. I know there's been this whole boyfriends trouble lately, but she's mostly had the best of intentions at heart." She considered this. "Actually, she's beat up quite a lot of boys because of me over the years."  
"Including me," Vexen said a little grumpily.  
Naminé reached months and months back into her memory. Yes, Vexen had been punched to pieces before. Marluxia had found him. And it had cumulated in Larxene with a bloody nose, via Marluxia's fist.  
"That was her?" She asked. It made sense: they'd been spending a lot of time together and Larxene, by nature, was a jealous creature. "Oh. _Oh_. Then why did Marluxia-?"  
"Why did Marluxia what?"  
"Well, he was the one who punched Larxene. Don't you remember? I was really confused about that and you wouldn't tell me what happened."  
"I wasn't really telling anybody anything," Vexen said at length. "I mean, it wasn't that long after Marluxia, and I was finding it hard to talk to people. I kept thinking that everyone knew, and..." He trailed off.  
"It's alright," Naminé said understandingly. "It's all over now."  
"Yeah. Hot chocolate?"  
They settled down on a dryish outcrop of rock, just at the foot of a steep hill where the wind wouldn't bother them if it picked up, and burrowed around in Vexen's backpack for the flask.  
"I forgot to bring a spare cup," Vexen said.  
"That's alright, we can share."  
The warmth of the milky liquid was refreshing to Naminé's raw throat, as was the break from walking. Vexen wasn't bad company, but he had a tendency to forget that his legs were very much longer than Naminé's, and leave her half-jogging in order to catch up.  
"This is nice," Vexen said, looking out over the sloping valley. Close by, the river trundled on.  
"It's good to get out of the house," Naminé agreed. "Larxene will probably throw a hissy fit, but she hates walking, so she can't complain."  
But she fell silent: Vexen had stretched out one hand, staring with a kind of puzzled amazement up at the sky. She looked at the fabric of his overcoat. It was speckled with tiny white particles, more collecting on his body and the ground around them.  
"It's snowing," He said, like he was twelve years old and dreaming. "Christ, it's _snowing_."  
Naminé glanced up, and outlined against the stormy sky were hundreds upon thousands of snowflakes, just beginning to tumble down and settling wherever they fell.  
"This wasn't forecast, was it?"  
"I don't know. I didn't check." Vexen said hurriedly, like weather forecasts were of no consequence whatsoever with more pressing matters to hand. "It's settling. Do you think it'll be heavy? The clouds are fairly dense. It's snowing. It's actually _snowing_."  
He kept saying this, over and over, like he couldn't believe his own eyes.  
"Maybe we should start heading back," Naminé said. They were a few miles from the house and the snow was beginning to thicken into a cloud around them.  
"There's no hurry," Vexen said, almost distractedly replacing the half empty hot chocolate flask so he could stand and wobble out into the flurry of snowflakes. "Come on, Naminé, it's _snowing_. When did you last see snow like this? Five, six years ago? Maybe even longer if it keeps up for any great length of time."  
"We might not be able to get back," Naminé pressed, tugging at Vexen's sleeve. He seemed to return to his senses, and nodded, raking a gloved hand through his snow speckled hair.  
"Sorry. You know how I am."  
Naminé smiled a little as they began the long trudge through the snow back up to the house. They'd be sodden, but that didn't matter. They were experienced in flopping in the door after trekking through rain and gale and prising their garments way from pruned skin.  
"It's alright," She said. "It's kind of cute."  
"Cute," Vexen echoed disbelievingly, already having trouble seeing through the sheets of snow, but he didn't actually dispute her.  
They pressed on. It would be a long walk home. 

* * *

By late afternoon, the snow was eight or nine inches deep, and still steadily accumulating.  
"Not enough to snow us in," Vexen said, looking up the weather forecasts on Larxene's laptop. Marluxia was nowhere to be found; the others had sheepishly collected in the sitting room - the only place where, currently, the heating was working. "Unless the forecast is wrong."  
"Which is likely," Larxene groaned. "So we'll be six feet under by morning."  
"There's no way of knowing," Vexen snapped, more out of habit than actual conviction that the snow would ease up: the cloud cover was absolute.  
"Trust me on this," Larxene said as she craned over the back of the sofa to peer out of the window. "Don't you remember ages ago, the last time we had deep snow? I was eight, so you were probably about fifty. It was exactly like this."  
Naminé - who was sitting between Larxene and Vexen on the sofa, curled up in a thick woollen blanket with a mug of hot chocolate clasped in her palms - was a little more prosaic in the matter.  
"It doesn't matter," She said gently. "We've got enough in the cupboard to last a few days, right?"  
"Maybe," was Larxene's sardonic reply, "But not enough patience to deal with Vexen."  
"Oh, you two are so competitive when I'm around," Naminé chided playfully, the response to which was Larxene's cruel laughter and a nervous little cough from Vexen. She decided, though, to say nothing of their reactions. It was almost cute.  
"Telly?"  
"Well, we don't have anything better to do, do we."  
Naminé settled back into the cushions, Vexen on her left and Larxene on her right, both trying to get closer to her while still remaining as far from each other as possible. There were worse things to do on a cold, snowy evening.  
Outside, the clouds darkened. 

* * *

By Monday the snow had stopped, by and large: but the sky was still overcast, and across the valley snowflakes still seemed to be falling. The house had been enveloped in a deep blanket of snow - not enough to, say, stop Vexen getting out of the front door in the morning, but enough for him to see that trying to drive his new car any way up the road would be a futile mission.  
"And guess which part of the street the council never bothers to grit," Larxene said behind him as he stared out into the banks of snow. He hummed a little, indistinctly, more preoccupied with wondering if the trains would still be running on time in this weather. Larxene, it seemed, had made so such effort: she was still in what constituted as her pyjamas (jersey trousers and a thick hoodie), her soles bare and her hair unbrushed.  
"Perhaps a snow day," Vexen agreed reluctantly, stepping back into the relative warmth of the hallway.  
"Yeah, Naminé got a call from her college, and they're shut until further notice," Larxene said. "And there's no way I'm trekking into town in this weather. Have you _seen_ the state of my car?"  
Vexen peered out at Larxene's ancient Golf, which would probably have been more at home in a scrapheap than a drive.  
"Suits the house, I suppose," He said eventually. Larxene chuckled.  
"Just like everything in my life," She said with an air of resignation. "Old, decrepit and falling apart. All three of which indirectly caused by Naminé. Speaking of," she added; "The two of us were thinking about having a snowball fight or something this afternoon. Since I'll never let up the opportunity to throw cold and dense spheres into your face, are you game?"  
Considering just how cold and dense Larxene's snowballs would be if directed at Vexen (and several other factors, such as his poor aim and her extremely accurate one), it was probably a very bad idea to say yes.  
"I've got some paperwork that I want to-"  
"You always have paperwork!" Larxene exclaimed, slapping Vexen on the back as he shuffled hopefully towards the stairs. "Do you just purposefully make extra work for yourself, so you can feel like you're useful?"  
The bitch, she was joking and she had Vexen's career psychology pinned down in one easy sentence. He mumbled something discrete and possibly offensive at her in return, but it was a half hearted recital of textbook profanities. He was expecting Larxene to laugh, but strangely she didn't, just catching his arm with that vicious grip.  
"Hey," She said, sounding a brand of concerned that still didn't suit her harsh voice, "You're okay now, right?"  
"I'm fine-" Vexen began, thinking that she was just asking like everybody asked, out of routine rather than genuine care, but then he recognised the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay now."  
"You know," Larxene said, glancing away, "All that stuff he did for you, the car and the polar bears, I… I think he's trying to make up for what he did. You know, before."  
"Maybe," Vexen agreed reluctantly, although he wasn't so sure; it didn't seem like Marluxia to hold on to old grudges like that. But then again, what did Vexen know about the curious man? One moment he had been charming and flirtatious and cruel; the next his eyes so sincere, brooding at windows, buying him cars and giving him opportunities to relive the bliss of his childhood.  
"Yeah," Larxene said like she was at a loss for words. "Just checking."  
"I'm alright," Vexen felt compelled to confirm, if only so Larxene would return to her usual abrasive personality and stop giving him sidelong looks like that. She nodded at him, and relinquished her hold.  
"Okay, you can go back to your paperwork now."  
"And Naminé?"  
"Huh? Oh, she went back to bed. No point getting up early with nowhere to go. I might do the same. Still no sign of Marluxia, by the way. It's the cold, I'm telling you."  
Vexen shrugged: he didn't need to know where Marluxia was, unless it somehow involved him, and unexpected nudity.  
"Alright. Going back to bed sounds like a good idea, actually."  
Larxene laughed at him, fiddling with the thermostat. Halfway through the night, the heating had clicked back on again when the temperature in the hallway hit six degrees, but it didn't look as though it was going to work for very much longer. Either they'd scrape the money to fix it, at least until the weather began to look up, or they'd just invest in a few extra blankets at night.  
"But whose bed, exactly?"  
Vexen considered his own freezing room. He considered Naminé, curled up in her thick bundle of bedding, prospective recipient of cuddles. He considered the mad passion that interactions in Larxene's bedroom would bring.  
"Deliberating," He said eventually, hoping that he got the right tone of voice for Larxene to take his indecision as a joke. In reality, it was an easy choice; after all, Naminé had been so accommodating yesterday, and it only seemed fair to pay her a visit and hope that other, more intimate, things would follow.  
"Yeah, I'd love to curl up next to Naminé too," Larxene replied: but strangely, she was grinning uncruelly, even as she punched Vexen on the shoulder. "It's written all over your face."  
"You're…okay with that?" Vexen couldn't quite swallow his astonishment.  
"We had a conversation about it last night, after you went to bed. She really likes you, for some inexplicable reason." Larxene said. "I mean, she knows as well as I do how useless you two would seriously be together, but I guess there's no stopping teenagers, is there?"  
"Oh," Vexen said, mostly because it was taking a while for this new information to sink in. And once he had come to terms with this, he couldn't help but ask, "What else did she say?"  
"She thinks you're kind of cute, in a creepy thirty year old man kind of a way, blah, blah, blah," Larxene drawled. "I didn't listen to half of it, but I'm pretty sure that the upshot of it all is that she wants to have sex with you, even if she is incapable of admitting it to herself."  
Vexen considered this carefully.  
"What's in it for you if we get together?"  
"You're learning!" Larxene giggled. "Soon you'll be a sceptic even I can be proud of." And she patted him on the back, probably not coincidentally where she had just punched him. "So I was thinking: what's Naminé's sexual record? You, and Marluxia. He was just using her for whatever twisted means, probably just to complete the set, and you were miserable and desperate and fell right into Marluxia's trap-"  
"His trap?"  
"Oh, you still don't know about that? When he arrived, I made him promise he wouldn't take Naminé's virginity. Unfortunately, that meant that if you took it first, that left Naminé up for grabs."  
"Maybe we just happened to sleep together coincidentally," Vexen said, not wanting his first consensual sexual experience to have been part of some larger, more sinister plan after all.  
"You two prudish maidens? I doubt it. Marluxia engineered it, probably to relieve the boredom. He was living in Vegas before he moved in. Vegas, seriously. Prostitutes at every corner, all the gambling hells you could dream of..."  
As Larxene rambled on, Vexen tried to remember all of the things that had led to his brief relationship with Naminé: he'd been miserable because he'd just lost his job - that had nothing to do with Marluxia. But would he really have spent those hours up on the bridge if his memories of violation hadn't been so vivid in his mind? Would Naminé have worried so much if he hadn't been acting so curiously over the past few weeks in the first place? But the actual _sex_ had nothing to do with Marluxia - no, it had a lot to do with Marluxia: he was confused, scared, anxious to understand himself, to set the record straight; and Naminé had been just as charged, by her accumulating arguments with Larxene: the basis of which would never have been founded had Marluxia not entered the scene. But had Marluxia really _caused_ their tryst, or just happened to be the route of a random sequence of events from which one thing led to another?  
"Anyway," Larxene prompted, when Vexen - too lost in his own spiralling thought track - didn't reply. "We all regret our first sexual experiences-"  
"-some more than others," Vexen muttered under his breath.  
"- Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry for rocking your lonely virgin world. But Naminé, she doesn't deserve to have just lost her virginity to just some guy. And that, Vexen, is what you have been since you had that little tiff with Naminé and managed to fall down a cliff."  
"So you want me to have sex with Naminé," Vexen, who was a little confused, guessed.  
"Pains me to say it," Larxene said. She was inspecting her fingernails. "C'mon, Vexen. You were fun, I'll give you that, but as soon as I manage to seduce Marluxia again I'm not going to have any more use for you. She _likes_ you. It practically means love for someone as innocent as her. If you make her happy, then..." She paused, pinching the bridge of her nose; Vexen had no doubt that her next words were something just short of physically painful for her. "Then I'm willing to make concessions."  
Vexen didn't need telling twice.  
"Thank you," He managed to say, and took the stairs two at a time towards Naminé's room before Larxene could change her mind.

* * *

Larxene watched him disappear, then turned, receded into the kitchen, and pulled out her mobile phone. She found the right contact, hit dial, and pressed the phone to her ear. After a while, there was a click as her call went through.  
"Darling?"  
"Alright, Marluxia," She said as she boiled the kettle. "I did what you asked. I practically told Vexen to fuck her already. Now explain to me again how exactly this is going to improve relationships in the house?"


	26. The End, And The Beginning

That morning Naminé was at once an alien creature and a familiar friend, a witch who stole Vexen's heart and an angel who returned it, cleaner and lighter than it had been for a long time. After he had explored the curves of her body, knowing that this would be the last time, they lay together on her bed for a long time, a soft, snowy light shining in through the window, making them feel both cold and warm.  
Then, when the hunger in their stomachs began to call out louder than their limbs were heavy, Naminé glanced Vexen's way and said: "The dream is unravelling, isn't it?"  
"Which dream?"  
"You know, our dream. Your dream." Naminé gestured broadly to the room around her, filled with little bits of her life that had got in the way of her aspirations. "Things are changing. I can feel it. I don't think that we're all going to be here for much longer."  
"Well," said Vexen, ever earthed and pragmatic, "The house is falling down, I suppose."  
Naminé chuckled. "That too." Then she sighed a little. "I don't know whether I feel sad or not. We worked so hard for this."  
"Is the house really that important to you?" Vexen asked; "Even though you know this wasn't what Larxene wanted?"  
"That's what I mean," Naminé replied. She kicked at the duvet a little, tucking it under her feet. Larxene must have finally caved and turned the heating up a few more degrees last night, since she didn't feel cold without a heap of blankets draped over her, too. "I don't know how much I care about the house. I…I'm beginning to realise that I just want to be with Larxene. That's the important thing."  
"I can't think why," Vexen said dryly. But before his bedmate had a chance to elaborate, he shook his head. "That was a joke."  
"Would you stay here, if it weren't for us?" Naminé asked, after a long pause. "I mean, you travel a long way to work now. It would be much more convenient if you moved, and you could probably afford a small flat now. But you didn't."  
Vexen thought about the crumbly old house, with its torn wallpaper and creaky stairs, every part of it almost but not quite matching every other part. How long had he lived here, now? Three or four years? He was beginning to lose count. He supposed that he just liked the familiarity of it all, the dent in his mattress that fitted his lanky body and the rooms he could navigate with his eyes closed.  
"I don't know," he said at length. "I think it's just a case of inertia, to be honest."  
"I'm going to talk to Larxene about selling," Naminé announced very suddenly, just as the silence was beginning to settle sleepily in the corners of her bedroom. "She wants to move around, and as long as I still have a sketchbook I'm happy to go with her. Maybe this house will give us enough for the first leg of the journey."  
But perhaps that was just a little piece of the sky in Naminé's mind, because even a few weeks later when Marluxia became once more a fixture in the house, the snow just a memory, Vexen had heard nothing more of her proposal. The strangest thing about Marluxia's return by far was that the house felt more complete to Vexen with his floral scent hanging around and his thick leather coat hanging by the door. It wasn't as though Vexen often saw the other man: he was busy all day at work and by the time he came home, Marluxia had usually gone out somewhere or other to pass the time. Come to think of it, Vexen wasn't even sure where Marluxia went off to: it wasn't exactly as though their tiny little town had much in the way of night-life. But it was just satisfying, somehow, to see all those little bits and pieces of Marluxia around again, to meet him occasionally in the kitchen and pointedly ignore him.  
Larxene noticed this. She said one morning while she drank straight out of the milk carton, "You really need to stop staring at Marluxia's butt so conspicuously."  
Vexen, who was frying an egg, spluttered.  
"I am not staring at his- at him!"  
"Trust me, you are," Larxene drawled. "As an expert at such things, I'd notice." She put the milk carton back and rummaged around in the fridge for something else to eat, finally pulling out a yoghurt. "Just let him fuck you, already. I can hardly handle the sexual frustration."  
Vexen dug his spatula around the bottom of his egg and flipped it over, just for long enough to get rid of any uncooked white still left around the yolk. Then he slid it onto a plate and brought it over to the table. Cooking was so much easier now that the kitchen had been renovated; another thing he had to be grateful to Marluxia for.  
"Just because he's attractive doesn't mean I want to sleep with him," he huffed. That wasn't quite true: sometimes he did want to invite himself into Marluxia's bedroom, just to answer that one last mystery about himself, just to be sure - but he also didn't want to give Marluxia the satisfaction, didn't want to break into old wounds and dig up buried memories. It was complicated, more complicated than Larxene with her no-strings-attached-sex could probably ever understand.  
"Are you afraid he's going to ravage you without your consent?" Larxene said after a moment. She hadn't bothered to find a spoon, simply slurping the yoghurt from its pot. "Everything's all out in the open now. He wouldn't try that again."  
"I'm not _afraid_ of him," Vexen snapped. "If I thought that was the only reason why he wouldn't r…repeat the past, because he'd get caught, I wouldn't even consider it."  
Larxene laughed. "So you're considering it."  
"I am not!" Vexen spluttered. "This is your problem, Larxene, you are so simple minded." He sighed: some things would never change. "Sex isn't as easy for the rest of us as it is for you. And it's also not the only important thing in the world."  
Larxene glanced at the clock, muttering "I gotta go in five," under her breath. Then she stretched, neatly tossing her empty yoghurt pot in the bin. Dressed in a thick jumper and skinny jeans, she seemed oddly top-heavy to Vexen, a round ball of wool teetering on stilts. But she was still so gorgeous, because she was confident. "Look, I know Marluxia's a mystery wrapped within an enigma, but he's changed lately. Don't ask me how or why. I don't think even Naminé can figure him out. But it would probably do you a lot of good to loosen up and let him have his way with you."  
"You certainly like telling me who to have sex with, don't you?"  
"Hey, honey, I'm doing you a favour. I'll even ask him myself, if you like."  
Vexen groaned. "It won't come to that."  
Larxene was making her way out into the hall, collecting her shoes and coat.  
"One last thing," she called; "I'll give you fifty pounds if you manage to get him on the receiving end."  
She left before Vexen had a chance to refuse - or accept - her bet.

* * *

Ultimately, it was not Vexen who initiated further contact with Marluxia: it was Vexen's hair. A week or so after his conversation with Larxene, he finally got around to going to a barber after work and having all the scraggly tips of his hair trimmed off and the wavy locks that always fell foward of his ears cut into so the effect looked intentional. Given that he had not cut his hair since he had lived with Naminé and Larxene, nor had he bought himself new clothes in this time, he decided that he owed himself this one expression of unmasculine vanity.  
He felt nice on the way home, his head lighter and his hair straight and shiny around his head. He was aware that he kept patting it, every time he drew the car to a halt at red lights or a row of traffic. He was even seriously considering splashing out on some fancy shampoo or something (as though he even knew anything about such matters), or perhaps that would be rather too conspicuous and out of character. After all, some people at work genuinely thought that he was a hobo: there was even a rumour going around that he had stolen his new car, since it was so unlike anything else he owned.  
The house was dark and quiet as he returned, a note on the side board telling him that Larxene had taken Naminé out to see some new movie. He hung up his coat and checked the thermostat - high, thanks to Larxene and Marluxia's combined efforts - before putting the kettle on for a cup of tea. Outside the kitchen window, the garden light flickered, beyond it only darkness. Vexen thought about making supper. He also thought about his hair. And whether or not Marluxia might be in. He didn't expect so: the man was still elusive, his car rarely in the drive when Vexen was at home; and even when it was, half the time he was out anyway, presumably taking a walk in the sprawling countryside. There wasn't exactly anything else within walking distance of the house, anyway.  
Once his tea was brewed, Vexen made his way up the stairs, counting the ones that creaked as he did so. And evidently they creaked very loudly indeed, because as he reached the landing Marluxia's bedroom door opened and the man himself appeared, as perfect an apparition as ever, dressed in pyjama trousers and a pastel shirt that flattered his broad frame.  
Vexen was tempted to ignore him, but instead out of his mouth came a rather nonplussed "Oh, hello, Marluxia" as he reached for his doorhandle, fingers brushing over the keyhole. He'd been given a key to his room when he moved in but he lost it within a month, given that keys were not his forté and nobody was interested in coming in anyway.  
He was pushing the handle down when he felt firm hands slide into his hair, Marluxia suddenly very, very close.  
"This is very attractive," the man said, barely more than breathing each word. Vexen felt every cell in his body jolt. His hand slipped away from his doorhandle, just in time for Marluxia to twist him around and kiss him deeply, their bodies so close that Vexen could hear Marluxia's shirt rustling as the shorter man moved.  
"You have a problem," he managed to say sardonically as Marluxia pulled away, still appreciatively caressing his hair.  
"Perhaps I do," Marluxia replied flippantly. "You ought to have done this a year ago." And he rearranged Vexen's hair again so it showed no signs of having been played with. "Especially this," He added, running the locks that fell forward through his fingers.  
Vexen didn't want Marluxia to compliment his hair. He wanted him to kiss him again, and hard. But the only way to achieve those results was to do it himself.  
Vexen was not sure he had ever willingly kissed Marluxia before, at least not while sober. He didn't know he was capable of making Marluxia moan involuntarily, just with his tongue; the other thing that surprised him was how quickly Marluxia managed to pull him down the corridor and through his open bedroom door.  
"I've been waiting for this," he murmured appreciatively as he pushed Vexen against the wall, popping buttons. Waiting?  
"Evidently, waiting proved too difficult."  
"I didn't want to break my promise."  
Marluxia's promise to leave him alone? Vexen almost scoffed. Marluxia couldn't possibly have cared about that, could he?  
"Hmph. Consider that invalidated."  
"Oh," said Marluxia, scanning Vexen's body with a not at all unwelcome eye, "I do."  
Suddenly Vexen felt fingers interlacing with his, warm and smooth, as Marluxia pulled him towards the bed. He happened to notice that the covers were in disarray, almost as though Marluxia had only just woken up. Given his state of dress, perhaps this was the case.  
"You. Sit."  
"Ordering me around again, are we?"  
Marluxia smiled as he pulled Vexen's shirt away from his shoulders. Vexen wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a slight sideways twitch of the pink-haired man's head, as though Marluxia were resigning himself to this snarky, snappish behaviour. But then he seemed to be distracted by Vexen's hair again, murmuring "I told you you could have gorgeous hair if you'd just take care of it", this time sounding a lot less offensive than Vexen had thought he had last time. Then, suddenly, Marluxia looked at him with those deep eyes and in that perfect blue, just for a second, Vexen almost saw a real human being. Was Marluxia asking for consent? Did he care? Was that unguarded expression really genuine, or just another act to get Vexen to roll over on all fours like a dog for his pleasure? Vexen stared hard into that beautiful face, but the last thing he found was answers. Finally, he reached out and pushed Marluxia away, just a little bit, enough to show him that he was serious.  
"No," he said, the syllable surprisingly difficult to enunciate. "I'm not letting this happen again." He stood up, forcing Marluxia to look up to him. "This time, it's going to be on my terms or not at all."  
Marluxia smiled, but not unkindly.  
"Fair enough," he agreed ater a moment. "State your conditions."  
Suddenly, things fitted together so perfectly that Vexen found himself struggling not to smile. He levelled his eyes at Marluxia, picking words.  
"I get to be on top."  
Marluxia closed his eyes and laughed, but when he opened them again his expression was amused, even forgiving, and in that same pleasant voice he murmured, "Oh, Vexen, if that was all you wanted I'd have invited you in a long time ago," and pulled Vexen down onto the bed, kissing him affectionately with a force belied by his laughter and echoed by the way he tugged almost needily on Vexen's hair.  
And suddenly, seeing Marluxia splayed out on the bed beneath him with a playful expression on his pretty face, Vexen did not know what to do. Larxene's casual bet rose in his throat very suddenly as he realised that her mocking comment had stemmed not only from her belief that Marluxia would not lower himself to allowing another man to... dominate him, but that Vexen did not have the confidence or skill to get down and do it even if Marluxia were willing. He felt himself letting out a tiny soundless breath, at once aroused and intimidated by Marluxia's broad, half-clad frame. When had his shirt fallen open and loose around his shoulders? Why wasn't it over the other side of the room, where it belonged?  
"Come on, then," Marluxia murmured, his practiced hands flicking the top drawer of his bedside table open to reveal three paperbacks, two unlabelled bottles of pills, a watch, and a wider variety of lubrication than Vexen had realised existed.  
"Are all those really necessary?" He asked as Marluxia reached over and idly chose one, seemingly at random, pressing the bottle into his hand. Vexen inspected the small print, set against the clear plastic in a lustrous pink, promising him "ultimate comfort" and "enhanced pleasure". "Where do you even get this kind of stuff?"  
"You're treating this like some kind of mystical, forbidden act," Marluxia laughed, nipping his neck in what was presumably an attempt to help him relax. "Most people do have sex, you know."  
Vexen bit his lip, a familiar irritation at Marluxia rising inside him.  
"Oh, shut up," he snapped and kissed Marluxia hungrily, rendering himself unable to pull the gorgeous man's clothes away from his body; luckily, however, he had assistance in that department, his hands bumping against Marluxia's as they pulled soft cotton away from their skin.  
"You're so sexy when you're angry," Marluxia murmured in that same smug, self-satisfied tone, which only made Vexen moan louder and kiss him harder. He allowed himself to be manhandled onto Marluxia's perfect body, realised only moments after Marluxia had begun that the other man was sucking at his neck, twisted gracelessly away from what remained of his clothes, all the while fighting to gain hold of a situation that was quite unlike anything he had previously experienced. He tried to think logically, to remember how Larxene had operated beneath him, but those areas of his mind were nowhere to be found, leaving him nothing but the paradoxical duality of crippling anxiety and carnal need.  
Although he cursed them with every breath he could find, he was privately grateful for Marluxia's guiding hands (although less-so his condescending laughter as Vexen wriggled inexpertly closer to his crotch).  
"I will never forgive you," he managed to assert with his final coherent thoughts before somebody who wasn't quite him took over, and perhaps Marluxia laughed but if he did Vexen didn't hear it, too busy burying his face in that soft, perfect pink hair, breathing in deep gulping breaths of that fresh, cut-grass scent as though without it he would somehow drown in the banality of the real, every day life to which Marluxia could never belong. What he did hear was "Are you going to fuck me any time soon, or do I have to finger myself all day?", the only reasonable answer being, of course, _gladly_.  
Of course this messy, slippery affair was a new experience for Vexen, and one that brought him to unprecidented heights of mindlessness, but what surprised him later was that this was not because Marluxia was a man: it was because Marluxia was _Marluxia_. A Marluxia who moved in unexpected ways beneath him, whose eyes fluttered and whose breath hitched every time Vexen found purchase enough to drive himself in deep and hard, who clung to his naked skin with a ferocity that could almost be uncontrollable desire. Where had this strangely vulnerable man been hiding all this time? The enigma that was Marluxia's many faceted facade tugged at Vexen's curiosity, but far from distracting himself from the mix of saliva and sweat between their bodies the challenge that was Marluxia just served to fuel Vexen's arousal further.  
"You," he murmured, leaning right down to Marluxia's ear just to force the younger man's legs further apart, to hear him groan again, to _control_ him, "Are a very bad man."  
Marluxia smiled breathlessly.  
"Oh, Vexen," he laughed, and reached up to hold Vexen's face with both hands, all the better to kiss him. And beyond that, attempts at words were futile: even Marluxia seemed to be losing himself to lust and pleasure, his moans growing louder and the way in which he pressed against Vexen's body ever more desperate.  
Just as he felt himself slipping into orgasm, Vexen thought he heard the sound of the front door opening, but then the blood rushing through his body drowned out all other sounds than their heavy breathing. He tried to carry on a little longer, for Marluxia, but eventually he gave up and rolled away, his body limp. Marluxia found his skin again for that last final stretch, but even as his lips were parted for more deep kissing Vexen felt strangely removed from himself, simply allowing Marluxia to take what he wanted without fuss or reciprocation.  
"I'll run a bath, shall I."  
"Hmhm."  
While he let himself breathe, Vexen thought about what he had done, keeping half an eye on Marluxia's naked, glistening form stretching out under the warm lamplight.  
"Perhaps I shall stay in bed tomorrow," the younger man conceded as he reached over for his dressing gown, sliding it over his arms. Vexen scoffed.  
"Oh, come on, that's a poor excuse. It doesn't hurt _that_ much-"  
"Not if your partner shows some sense of self restraint," Marluxia interruped, turning round to face Vexen just a split second before he wrapped the folds of his dressing gown around his perfect body, and was hidden from view. His eyes were smiling, not cruelly, but certainly not kindly, either. Vexen felt himself flush.  
"Perhaps if you had said something..."  
"You think I wasn't enjoying it?" Marluxia said airily, and once he had put his slippers on, he disappeared out of the door.  
Vexen lay back on the sweat-soaked sheets, picking out the sound of Naminé and Larxene's voices below him, and the running tap in the bathroom. Marluxia's bedroom was warm, much warmer than his, and his muscles had a tension to them that felt oddly satisfying, somehow. Vexen closed his eyes. He was content.


End file.
